Originally published Friday, 27 February 2015.
It’s snowing outside right now. Again. I love the snow and the clean feeling as it falls on the earth. All of spring is in a holding pattern with a white insulated layer covering nature’s spring energy ready to bust forth on the next warm winter day. I just think of all the life laying laid bare before our eyes under winter’s cover. “The trees are getting thick,” my mom would say. All of nature anticipates the eventual birthing of blooms, beauty and all things life-giving.
An earth’s mantra declares its spring creation proclamation soon. Imagine a seed declaring its value based on its perfection. How flawless its edges. How unbreakable its exterior. How to the seed itself it must look lifeless, but to the planter the dormant life lies just on the inside, under a hard shell cover.
The real value of the seed lies on what’s hidden. The internal green marrow under a seasoned layer of bark. The burrowing of roots while covered with snow for the continuous process sending of tendrils in search of some essence. All growth has to go through is it’s own burial, the drench of water, and the crushing weight of pushing through the dirt
…just to be broken open.
Then there is the real process in germinating, growing, bursting forth with courage and boldness to begin something new. So it is with our faith under winter’s cover of life. We are waking seeds afraid of brokenness and mess. When, in reality, embracing the dirt that covers us is what bursts forth life. Seeds broken wide open become soft and pliable, moldable, breakable so that new life is revealed.
If it wasn’t for the pushing, the courage to move forward through storms, the faithfulness of God who imparts His essence in hope, our faith grows and blooms in just the right season. Perfection is an illusion that locks away the potential within us. It keeps our fears at bay to make us never even look in the direction of change. Perfection keeps us from starting, from dreaming, from uncovering the divine DNA that lies dormant with each of us.
Awaken our souls under the Spirit’s cover.
I want to be planted. I want to dive deep into the dirt. I want to let the rains wash over me. Let the snow cover me with winter’s clean fresh blanket. Knowing that it is in this place of vulnerability of searching for God’s essence, is a place that I want to dwell. The season of transformation, confirmation, and authentication occurs under the cover of growth in perfect Love and that casts out all fears and morphs my inner seed to fruit.
For when I break, I open up. The raw within that was once hidden will now be visible and blooming soon. And it turns out to be more tender and lovely than the shell I was trying to perfect and make shiny. New life rises up from the dirt. Different. More whole. Reaching for the light of the Son.
Imagine if you would let God get a hold of your hard coated heart and breath a little Holy breath of fire into it. What would happen if the Holy Spirit breathed some new life into your cold places while the winter of life is covering thick?
There are dark places in all of our hearts that we hide from the Planter, and don’t to give into the Light. Only the Gardner can make all things new in you. When you bust open, there is such freedom in knowing, seeking, and searching. There’s a newness to life, full promises that brings forth an alive feeling, like a force of a wildly glorious imprint of the Gardner’s hand that just invaded and touched our soul’s marrow…and it breaks open…bursts…spills. Such…transformation happens.
Yes, the trees are mighty thick as the the old will soon be gone and the new is here, continuous by God’s goodness. For at the proper time, we as seeds of faith, will grow, strong and anchored, with uncovered blooms, full blossoms, bearing the Spirit’s fruit as it was borne in us under winter’s cover.
Let God’s winter-white cover touch your deep places, your old past wounds, your messy life, your dirt that you won’t let go of. Let the Healer in. Let Him plant truth deep into those lifeless seeds. You have to let the Planter put His holy hands on the lifeless parts, crack open some shells, a breakthrough to your dormant soul. God wants to perfect, make stronger and prepare your soul for further faith. In the process, His love seeds germinate His essence.
Beauty is birthed in so many broken open places…letting go to life under winter’s cover.
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