Tag: new life

Running Into the Wind

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, nature, Photography, spring, Uncategorized1 Comment

There is something about the crocus flower that symbolizes eagerness to me. They remind me of my childhood family walking over hills covered with last years dry grass and through thickets of gray branches to reach a trail that was still edged with melting snow. I remember the cold wind rushing down the mountainside making jackets billow and long hair whip around in every direction.

If we had been hiking in the late autumn, after everything with colour had blown away, we would have complained about how nasty that cold Alberta wind could be. But in the spring, the same temperature and the same stiff breeze felt wonderfully warm. We tucked hats and gloves into deep pockets and ran into the wind, our arms raised high as if to catch all the promises of spring in our hands.

A south-facing hillside showing off crocus flowers bobbing their heads in the breeze was our reward and evidence of better times and brighter days ahead. Yes, there would be disappointing blustery snowy icy days before winter fully released it’s grip, but the season of growth and harvest approached.

After this latest season of Lent and a time of allowing myself to be aware of the darkness Christ came to illuminate, the week after Easter feels like receiving the freedom to run toward the gifts He promised. One of those was the presence of the Holy Spirit who walks beside us and never leaves. He tells us through Paul:

Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.

(1 Corinthians 14:1 NIV)

Crocus flowers are like fuzzy purple floral forerunners who respond to the season change before the other flowers. That’s what New Testament prophecy makes possible –being the first to see what others miss in changing times and responding to it in faith.

Teach me your ways, Lord. Show me your paths. Lead me in the way everlasting. Let me run into the wind with joy.

Sorrow and Joy

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, spring3 Comments

From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead. (Matthew 16:21 NLT)

Sometimes I wonder what it must be like for people coming to Canada from tropical countries. If you have never seen it, would you believe it if someone told you, “There is a season coming when all the trees and plants and grasses will die? The world will be too cold for them to live and if you are not careful to find shelter and a source of heat you could die too. But don’t worry. After a few months of cold and long nights, they will come back to life again.”

I wonder if someone who has never heard of this or experienced it before would respond, “How exciting!’ or would they say, “No way! We will protect our gardens nd fields!” Many immigrants have told me their first winter was a shock and felt like it was never going to end.

Jesus told his disciples clearly, and more than once, precisely what was going to happen. When it did, they were shocked and dismayed. For all his declarations that Jesus would not be mistreated and killed under his watch, Peter had to face the fact that he was dead wrong. Jesus was arrested, humiliated, abused, and killed. The shock was so traumatizing it took a time before they remembered that he told them he would be raised after three days.  But how? They still had no grid for that.

Yesterday, I passed by a vine-covered wall. There has been no sign of life on those bare branches for months. Now there is. What appeared to be dead is awakening to new life.

Today’s prompt word for Creative Meditations for Lent is Sorrow/Joy. Sometimes terrible things happen. We reel with the shock of photos of bodies in the streets in the Ukraine. We wail at the news of friends dying of Covid and other afflictions after we prayed with fervour and declared they would not die. We make plans for next week, next year, and the next decades and deny as much as possible that we live in mortal bodies that 1 Corinthians 15 reminds us are perishable, even though as believers in Christ we are promised eternal life.

Perhaps the lesson we can learn from new green leaves on a bare vine is this: Even though we have no grid for resurrection from the dead in new bodies, it will happen. There is more to the passage on running the race than I quoted earlier this week.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12: 1-3)

Oh, how I love the spring! What a harbinger of much greater joy!

Old Things Have Passed Away

On By Charis PsalloIn PhotographyLeave a comment

Word prompt for today’s Lent meditation: Old/New

I saw these old dead flowers in a flower bed by the church down the street. When I had my own garden I gathered spent flowers and threw them in a compost bin. Later, I shoveled the unrecognizable rotted material into the garden and worked it into the soil.

I suppose that if we are what we eat, plants are what they eat too. The nutrients in old dead flowers become green beans or sugar peas or sunflowers that may bear no resemblance to the plants of the former season.

The transformation Christ creates in us is even more dramatic. He says that baptism is a symbol of the old self dead and buried and the new self raised and living a life transformed. Holy Spirit is in us to oversee the change into the image of Christ.

“For if a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether—the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

We get a re-do, this time with access to the throne of Creator of the Universe — the Three in One who has never lost a battle.

New Life

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, springLeave a comment

At each and every sunrise you will hear my voice
    as I prepare my sacrifice of prayer to you.
    Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on the altar
    and wait for your fire to fall upon my heart.

-Psalm 3:5 TPT

The tree in our front yard that failed to bloom for the past two years is loaded with abundant blossoms this morning. I was afraid it was dying and would never bloom again, but its glory has been restored.

Sometimes I am disappointed with people. More often I am disappointed with myself. Patience and perseverance are character qualities that don’t come easily. This morning the plum tree, thick with flowers and glowing in the morning light speaks to me of a new day, a new season, a fresh vision.

Lord, I lay out the pieces of my heart, the successes, the failures, the disappointments and the dreams. I wait again for your fire to fall on my heart and renew a right spirit within me.

New Life, New Hope

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography, springLeave a comment

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Beware of harking back to what you once were when God wants you to be something you have never been.

Oswald Chambers

The sun shone brightly. A warm gentle breeze stirred the topmost branches to tap a joyful rhythm against the window.

My friend came by while I was in the house and released Mason bees into the forsythia bush, now laden with new blossoms. She told me with delight that she watched a female immediately find a mate.

Last week, our spirits fell along with the temperature and bare branches (save one leaning against the warmth of the window) collected more snow. Last week was winter.

This week, the first bright colour in the garden arrived suddenly. This week is spring.

Transformation is like that. We wait and wait and wait, then suddenly life changes — and nothing will ever look the same again. We are not who we used to be.

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A New Day of Destiny

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography, spring, UncategorizedLeave a comment

 

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Can you not discern this new day of destiny breaking forth around you?

The early signs of my purposes and plans are bursting forth. The budding vines of new life are now blooming everywhere. The fragrance of their flowers whispers, “There is change in the air.”

Arise, my love, my beautiful companion, and run with me to the higher place. For now is the time to arise and come away with me.

Song of Songs 2:13 TPT

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New. It Has Begun.

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, springLeave a comment

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Made for spirituality, we wallow in introspection.
Made for joy, we settle for pleasure.
Made for justice, we clamor for vengeance.
Made for relationship, we insist on our own way.
Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment.

But new creation has already begun. The sun has begun to rise.
Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world …

That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian: to follow Jesus Christ into the new world, God’s new world, which he has thrown open before us.

– N. T. Wright

Happiness Is a Direction

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography, spring2 Comments

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Happiness held is the seed; happiness shared is the flower.
A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour.
Happiness is a direction, not a place.

-Sydney J. Harris

 

 

 

I wasn’t expecting to see my favourite wild flowers blooming so early. It’s been a harsh winter in the eastern part of the province. We all feel a bit traumatized. Spring flowers, understandably, are also reluctant to poke their heads out.

I found myself in the Okanagan this week on a bit of a detour from the usual routine. There, beside the pioneer’s cemetery on a hill overlooking the city, happiness turned its face to the sun and bloomed its heart out.

I share it with you.

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