Hope Springs
I look outside and I wonder if I have lost them all
Vines, plants, bushes tended and laboured over with love,
Life seems utterly sucked out of them.
Wind battered, frost bit, brittle they look back at me with pale face.
Look again, my child.
I hear the Gardener's quiet whisper.
Do you see the green?
I lean close. I search and look with my pale face and aging eyes.
Just barely. Ever so slight, I see the smallest green bud appearing.
Amidst the woody, lost-looking bits, I see life.
Can these dry bones live? He whispers
My heart yields, 'Only You know, Lord!?'
Later, as if a reminder, the song wafts through my speakers.
This soul-singer speaks of his furrowed, torn-open-heart.
My heart nods an emphathic "yes" in recognition.
I, too, feel a bit battered and worn.
Ripped holes makes space for seed, he sings.
Will what looks so-very-dead rise again?
Do you see the green? I hear the whisper, again.
I look and see this smallest spark of life and I will hope.
"Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone,
but in every leaf in springtime"
~ Martin Luther
Andrew Peterson's The Sower's Song