Sometimes in Winter, it's hard to see the promise of Spring. The gray landscape, the cold wind that makes you want to huddle under a blanket. I look at the garden. Pieces of dead vegetation are tumbled in the mud, and bits of Autumn's harvest cling to the fencing with no hope for tomorrow. It's bleak, and it brings me no joy. I want to walk backward six months to the days when I watched the earth for seedlings, and rejoiced to see the flowers budding out. I want to smell the soil baking under a warm sun. I want, I want, I want...and then I am reminded. I am reminded that although it looks like all is lost, there is a purpose for this season. The seeds that have fallen to the ground need to sit and wait. They need to experience the fury of Winter in order to burst forth in Spring. This is not idle time. Were it not for the frozen ground heaving up and becoming broken, the seeds could never be planted. They would still lie atop the garden beds when the snow melted away, and they would be eaten by the birds, or rot in the muddy mess. I wonder what the seed thinks as it tumbles down the abyss created by that heaving soil. It probably thinks it is finished. It has no legs to climb it's way back out, no voice to cry for help. Done, I'm done. The days tick by, the seed remains in the cavern. Then, one day, long after the seed has given up all hope, something amazing happens. It burst forth from it's assumed prison, and becomes something beautiful.
Ecclesiastes 3:1There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—
2A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
3A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
4A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance...
Ecclesiastes 3:11
11He has made everything beautiful in its time.
