It never fails. This time of year, I'm always amazed by spring. And I bet you are, too.
Hi, I'm Joni Eareckson Tada and if you were to help me cut back my roses this past season, you would never think those poor stumps would ever blossom again. I mean, when Ken gets those clippers and lops off the canes all the way down to the nub… my rosebushes look so naked; not just that, they look bruised and injured. He’s ruthless with those clippers – and not just my rosebushes, all the shrubbery gets cut back. In my backyard, nothing escapes the bite of those sheers. Through the winter, the backyard of the Tada household looks stripped and bare. But here it is March and already we’re seeing those first green shoots beginning to bud. Narcissus and daffodils are poking their heads… the rosebushes are coming to life and, let’s see, back east, it would be the little yellow forsythia budding a few weeks ago. Aren’t you glad the way spring revives the earth? It always changes things. Life begins all over again when spring comes to my backyard.
To me, spring is such a wonderful symbol of how we all thrive on hope. When we feel bruised and injured, when our souls feel stripped and bare, we need to know, we long for the comfort and assurance that it won’t always be this way! That it will get better. That there will be a rest, a break, a time when healing will come. Some people who suffer think that such a spring will never come in their lives, like Job who wrote, “There is hope for a tree: if it is cut down, it will sprout again and its new shoots will not fail. Its stump may die in the soil, yet with water; it will bud and bring forth shoots.” That’s what Job felt! But, thankfully, even though Job couldn’t see it at the time when he wrote this, his suffering did have an end. It did draw to a close. Things did get better.
That speaks to me as I sit in my wheelchair. Even though I live with quadriplegia, I have the wonderful assurance that it won’t always be this way. There is coming a time when healing will arrive and all my hopes will find fulfillment. The spring of the resurrection is just over the horizon and when I finally receive my new body, finally when there’ll be no more tears and sorrow and sighing will flee away (as it says in Isaiah), finally the suffering – all suffering – will draw to a close. Affliction will be ended. And friend, this is why the Christian is so hopeful. It’s why we can rejoice. First Peter 5:10 gives this marvelous promise, it says, “And the God of all grace, who called you into His eternal glory in Christ, (now get this) after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” Look, I’ve lived as a quadriplegic in this wheelchair for well over 43 years, but compared to the joys in all of eternity? Hey, this suffering is only for a little while… the Bible tells me so. The bruising and battering is only a blip on the eternal screen. Soon and very soon it will all be behind us and then, the hardships of this world will only seem like a half-forgotten dream.
I write about this in a little booklet I’ve titled “When Winter Gives Way to Spring” and I’d love to send you a copy today. Just contact me at joniandfriends.org and we’ll pop it in the mail right away. Finally, let the Holy Spirit lift your hopes today. Friend, the grief will end; the tears are going to dry, don’t worry; the heart is going to heal; and even though grace does grow best in winter, even winter gives way to spring. And, friend, that’s just over the horizon!
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 91376
©Joni and Friends