Death of a...

It's spring now; time for new life and growth. Winter is over, the snow is gone and it is the season of possibilities.

In preparing my flower bed for new flowers I found these dead, dried up stalks from last year's Black Eyed Susans. Their brittleness stood out starkly against the lushness of the new green grass and already sprouting perennials. Their season had passed. There was no beauty now in them.It's all over. Done. Nothing left to offer...

Death is not limited to flowers. It happens in jobs and opportunities, relationships and endeavors. What once was vibrant and flowering has now shriveled and dried up. Things that seemed like they would flourish forever, gone.

There's a saying that "When God closes a door, He opens a window" and this is akin to that. In every opportunity, endeavor, or relationship that is no longer blossoming in the landscape of your life, there are things to be learned from it, positively or negatively, that can impact what is planted in your life next because in these stalks are seeds and through these seeds a component of what was will continue to live on.

Max Lucado has said that God never wastes anything. God is the ultimate recycler in using all that comes into our lives for His purposes. Isn't it nice to know that there is still life in and after death - that what you seem to have lost will still be carried over into new things?

I've crushed the heads of my black-eyed susan stalks, scattering hundreds of seeds into the ground. There are many more seeds than there were ever flowers. There are many things we learn during the course of an opportunity or a relationship and in the death of one as well that we take away with us.

Will these seeds sprout? Will the lessons learned become good things even though they were connected once to what no longer is? Although this time is over will there be more? Will there be new flowers this season?

Perhaps the question is do we believe in the truth of Romans 8:28,29? Not in a "pat on the back -everything is going to be okay now, you hear?" type of naivete but in a deep down trust that God takes complete responsibility for the life devoted to Him.

Is the God of Sunday worship powerful enough to deal with Monday's disappointments? And the loss that comes with Wednesday? And the jumble of strong emotions that follow that? Can God take death and out of it bring life?

Seems to me He's already proven that He can...