Spring bulbs

Even though it is winter, the hope of spring is there. My bulbs, planted in late summer are in full leaf. Pushing up through the grass-like growth are stems, full and pregnant with blooms yet to open. Some will be the creamy coloured, sweet scented clusters of early Cheer. Daffodils of different varieties will burst in golden splashes and freesias, white or purple will wave their trumpet-like blooms and shake the perfume from their throats.

To give the bulbs a good chance, it is a good idea to keep them in the refrigerator, dark and cold. Then they are dropped into the soil to wait for yet a few more cold months. As the faintest signs of the sun moving into the new season, they stir with life and break free from the soil.

My spiritual walk can be like this too. I grumble because sometimes it seems that I have been waylaid, forgotten and kept in some cold, lifeless place. Then I pray and it can happen that things get worse! Down into the despair of the soil, where I almost succumb to wishing it truly were a grave.

But I don’t have the right to give up. A bulb that sits in the ground, wallowing in too much sorrow and water will rot. One that sits in dry ground, unable to find living water can wither. But the bulb that is sensitive to the touch of life abides only until the season is right, then it takes the moment and reaches for the sun.

For a long time, the flower is nurtured within the stem, closed to view. But a day comes when it is ripe. Sometimes we are called to bloom in some way or another, just for a moment. Life opens for a time and we bless others with the fragrance of Jesus. A word in season, a prayer that has God’s grace, spoken at an apt time, these are the things that are the promise of new life in us.

I can never look at a daffodil without seeing the praise of God in the brightness of its colour, nor breathe the good scents of fresh spring flowers without sensing the perfume of praise from even nature itself. Our praise is a sweet aroma to God, and our hearts are seen to him, like opening buds.

May the garden of my heart be like the hope of spring to Him. As he comes to walk in the garden with me, may he see that I have waited with patience for his new season.