E-votional Message...

Welcome Spring...

In the middle of this long past winter, I made a promise to God.  I promised God that this year I would welcome every single sign of spring.  I promised to welcome the flowers and the mud and the green grass and the warming temperatures.  I even promised to welcome the presence of bugs in my house, a sure sign of spring.  Last week I’m sure that God laughed at me as I battled an army of invading ants!  Yes, it is time to give thanks for spring. 

Ted Loder, a favorite poet of mine, wrote a prayer about the spring.

It is spring, Lord, and the land is coming up green again, unfolding outside my well-drawn boundaries and urgent schedules.

And there is mystery and the smile of it.

The willows are dripping honey color into the rivers, and the mother birds are busy in manger nests, and I am learning again that for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.

O Lord, you have sketched the lines of spring.  Be with me in my unfolding.

It is spring, Lord, and my blood runs warm with the song of sap, longing for a beauty I would become.

And there is the mystery and the smile of it.

The buds are swelling on the bush, the sun is beginning to coax the color from where it’s been curled against the cold, the air is sweet to the nostrils; even the city seems to be rubbing its eyes from a long sleep; and there is a promise in the season I know no name for except life.

O Lord, you have sketched the lines of spring.  Be with me in my longing.

It is spring, Lord, and something stirs in me, reaching, stretching, groping for words, peeking through my defenses, beckoning in my laughter, riding on my past fears, pulsing in my music.

And there is the mystery and the smile of it.

Be with me in my reaching so I will touch or be touched, this time, by a grace, a warmth, a light, to unfold my life to a new beginning, a fresh budding, a spring within as well as around me.

O Lord, you have sketched in the lines of spring.  Be with me in my reaching.

Amen
                                                                                            Amy Miracle

“When one door closes another opens. But often we look so long so regretfully upon the closed door that we fail to see the one that has opened for us.”

Helen Keller