overflowing life

I took this photo once when I was jogging around Northeast Portland, through the curving streets, under the giant old trees, pounding the pavement past the varying shades of Portland roses, my breath getting heavier and my steps shrinking as I rounded another corner. Stately house after stately house, all sitting behind lovely landscaped yards, nestled under a dignified canopy of aged branches— they ran past my vision as I ran past them. 

But what caught my eye? This bush of overflowing flowers, spilling through a fence. Red. Flowers so red. 

Let it be spring!

"Let it be spring! Come, bubbling, surging tide of sap! Come, rush of creation!" These words, penned by English author D.H. Lawrence, do so well echo the yearnings of every Michigander I know. And rightly so!

     Spring is the season of newness of life, a resurrection from the white death-sleep of winter. The trees shake off their icy coats and the ground gives up its first tender stems and stalks. All around us is blossoming health. It seems that nature itself has been roused from a great and deep slumber, and how happy we are to greet its waking! 

     And yet Spring is also the season of hope. This month we've tasted the longer days and the warmer air, but also the promise of renewal and life to come. We now see only the first buds appearing, but we're confident that they will soon burst into leaf and blossom. Blessed are we who, no matter the season, live in a perpetual Spring of hope. The beauty of this season and the joys of this living are but the foretaste of the new heavens and the new earth. 

     Come, rush of

new

creation!

passionate and enduring

     I had a good friend from college come through town a while back. I hadn't seen Stefan for a few years, but we had maintained contact. Still, there was a lot of catching up to do, a lot of the usual questions: "How's the weather out there?" "How old are we?!" "What's grad school like for you?" The usual stuff. But even while we were talking about those mundane things, I knew that there was something big we were going to end up talking about sooner or later: Stefan's divorce.

     He and his wife met through mutual friends and quickly became close friends themselves, eventually falling in love. They had a huge extravagant wedding-- beautiful, actually. There was nothing to indicate that only a couple years later they'd be separated, filing for a divorce to end their marriage.

     Stefan told me that it wasn't too big of a surprise for him. They'd each had a rough year and it was hard on their marriage. And, he said, they had mentioned from time to time the possibility of divorce, but always in a "but-we-wouldn't-do-that" sort of way. In fact, they were in counseling, trying to work through it. But one day his wife told him, "I want a divorce." And he agreed. And that was the end.

     It was such a painful story to hear him tell. I'm married and the thought of a divorce is really scary. And I could hear the pain in his voice. Divorce was not what he was hoping for, it wasn't what he dreamed about when he proposed, or when they got married, or on their honeymoon. He was hoping for forever, not this.

     It's not what any of us ever hope for, is it? Nobody wants to see their relationship split apart and broken up. The song says (a little too cheerily) that "breaking up is hard to do." Gimme a break! Breaking up is horrible to do. Full of mixed up feelings, regrets, sadness, loneliness, a sense of loss. And an abiding disappointment: This was not what I signed up for....

     What we're looking for -- all of us -- is a love that will last. And it's hard to find. We endure so many broken relationships in our own families, so many franctured friendships, so many romantic failures and painful breakups. And yet, despite the difficulties, we keep searching for the love that will stand the test of time, a love that is both passionate and enduring. There's really only one place to find a love like that.

     There's an ancient and well-known text in the Bible, the testimony of God's friend Jeremiah: "The LORD appeared to us . . . saying, 'I have loved youwith an everlasting love; I have drawn you with lovingkindness." (Jeremiah 31:3) Today you can rest in the knowledge that God has a forever love for you, and it's the same yesterday, today, and forever, a love both passionate and enduring.

Food

I'm hypoglycemic. It basically means that my body has some difficulty regulating the amount of sugar in my bloodstream. It's annoying.

If it's been too long since nourishment entered my mouth, I start to develop a progressive series of symptoms. My head becomes a little fuzzy and ache-y, I feel weak, I lose precise motor control, my thinking is slow and foggy, my insides feel like inside-outsides. I even completely lost my vision once. And ironically, at these times when I most need food, my appetite for it is GONE. Food makes me want to gag and throw up, but I have to force myself to eat because it's the only way to get healthy again.

"People can't survive on food alone; they need every word that God speaks." Deuteronomy 8:3 // Matthew 4:4