Spring in Your Step

I love spring.

Actually, I'm kind of a "betweener" season kind of gal...Spring when everything is waking up, and Autumn when everything is getting ready for a long winter nap.  Although Autumn creates feelings that are warm, comforting and homey, Spring makes me yawn, stretch, get up, and starting going again.  It's refreshing, invigorating, and rejuvenating.  It's a chance to turn over a new leaf (literally if you're a plant).  I love to look out the window to see the daffodils start pushing through the hard earth, the fat robbins and squirrels hopping and scurrying about, the grass greening up and people out walking again (without looking like the little boy in the snow suit on The Christmas Story).  Everything is fresh and new.

I especially like Spring in a year like this, when we've had a couple of snow storms and some genuinely cold Kansas weather.  It just makes a better contrast for when the sun starts to push it's way out and warm up the earth.  Clouds no longer look dull and grey and heavy with snow.  Instead they are either a light, puffy white or a deep, dark blue that announces a spring storm rolling in.  I have so many wonderful images and associations linked to spring.  For example, the crisp, breezy spring weather reminds me of track meets.  The fresh smell of damp earth makes me think of hours spent playing in the mud or helping in Mom's garden and flower beds.  A whif of straw or cow manure reminds me of spring calving...one of my absolute favorite events of the year.  Baby calves laying in fresh straw in the barn are certainly cute and fun.  It's even more fun to see them out in the greening pasture, running and frollicking with their calf-friends with their tails shooting up in the air behind them.  On a sunny day they'll spread out, laying on their sides and soaking in the sun's rays.  What a life!  It's a brand new world to them, filled with new discoveries, adventures and innocent fun.

This year we're going home to Stockton for Easter.  One of my favorite memories of spring on the farm was getting up waaaayyy before the sun was coming up, piling in the car wearing coveralls and stacks of blankets, and driving the twenty five miles or so to the other side of Stockton.  There was Hazen Hill...an awesome eastern overloook in the middle of a pasture where our church family gathered for Easter Sunrise Service.  Usually the Gartrell and Hazen families were responsible for the event, so we always got there first.  Then Ethan, Brett and I would go running through the pasture down the hill in the dark (occasionally one of us had a flash light), trying to see which one of us would find the cross first.  There's a little area cut away into a hill, with some big rocks to sit on, and an old rugged wooden cross erected on the eastern edge of the area.  As people gather, the glow of the sun begins to rise over the little valley where Stockton sits.  We sing, we pray, sometimes there are skits or a brief message.  All the while the sun's glow is growing on the eastern horizon behind that cross.  At just the perfect moment, it slips over the horizon, and the warm, cleansing golden light spreads across the faces of every person present.  We celebrate communion, there in the glow of the new sun.  And then Dad, with his cold, battered fingers pulls out his guitar, and strums away as we all sing "The Old Rugged Cross" and end with the victorious "Up From the Grave He Arose".  It's an incredibly special moment, and one that sets the tone for a special, celebratory day. 

As the sun comes up behind the cross - the symbol of the price Christ paid for us - it's the reminder of a new beginning; a new hope.  I think that's why I love Easter so much.  Christ's crucifixion and resurrection is truly a source of hope and joy.  It's God overcoming sadness and death and claiming the victory of new life.  It's the chance for a new beginning.  After long, cold, and hard winters - physically, spiritually, and emotionally - we need the fresh start of Spring.  We need the fresh reminder that "because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed," in our winter months, "for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness, O Lord." (Lametations 3:23)  God gives us a fresh start with his Son, and a "new song" to sing in our Spring.   

I know my posts get ridiculously long...but if I don't write it now I'll probably forget it.  So, to put a little Spring in your step, I'd like to share the words of a hymn that is a favorite of mine.  It's called "Hymn of Promise", written by Natalie Sleeth in 1986, and goes like this:

 In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
in cocooons, a hidden promise:  butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there's a spring that waits to be,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

There's a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
there's a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
in our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.