Spring comes early this year to the farm in Cloverdale, Michigan.
I pass hundreds of pine trees on my left as I kick up the dust from the path in front of me. Every breath I take is filled with the excitement of awakening and anticipation. Little ponds of water fill the low spots. I stop to look and wonder at the tiny squiggly creatures swimming about in the murky water. “It must seem like a vast ocean to them,” I think to myself. The sun feels warm on my back as I hurry toward the lake.

It is spring and everything around me seems to be bursting with new life. Birdsong is everywhere and the patches of leftover winter snow are shrinking in front of my eyes…their essence slipping away through little ribbons of water that flow into the makeshift ponds teeming with life.

I see a stubborn clump of snow capped with a chunk of ice in the shadows where the sun’s rays are blocked by the trunk of a long dead majestic oak…now just a shell of a once grand tree. It seems as if in its own demise and slow return to the earth, it now stands sentinel to lengthen whatever hours or days the snow has left. Strange it seems…heat and cold embracing one another at the very same time. This is why so many Europeans chose this place as their new home.

It is much like the homes where their roots of several generations are found. Somehow the changing seasons embody the very cycle of life. Birth and death. Every fall the earth becomes tired and begins its big sleep. The snows cover the earth with a blanket of white beneath which the seeds anxiously await the warmth of the sun to wake them from their slumber. Once this happens they tenaciously burst through the soil and turn their faces to the sun. This is spring!

There is something in the air that I cannot describe, I can only inhale it and know that it is there. I am alive, and all around me Mother Nature is smiling. I now understand why the sages of old chose springtime to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. Indeed the earth itself is being born again. New life is everywhere.

Just months ago trees stood gaunt like grey skeletons having dropped their leaves reluctantly to the ground. Bare branches creaking empty in the winter wind now sway with pride as green nubs swell with the promise of new life ready to burst forth and open with green glory when the first warm day caresses their inner being. Isn’t it the same with us?

In the seasons of life we are born in the springtime. All is fresh with promise and joy. Happiness buzzes around us and the warmth of the sun embraces us with possibility and hope. We grow and are nurtured into the summer of our lives. We learn to stand on our own and find our way in the world.

Life is filled with purpose and responsibility, and that, for all its hardships, is good. If we live long enough we reach the fullness of fall and the weary yet gracious days of satisfaction for a life well spent. Yes, spent. Not just lived, for spending is intentional, and having done so we know that we have made a difference.

As fall slips into winter, and with the necessity of sleep we all face one day, we are assured that the slumber is but a passage to a new life that is beyond our imaginings.

May you be filled with renewed hope and promise as Mother Nature awakens once again, and God smiles upon the earth with new possibilities.. Blessed Easter dear friends, embrace the message of hope and celebrate the wonder of life!

Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!