It’s Not Dead

Eventhough I complain about the winters…and the snow and how cold it can get in the Northeast…there is something spiritual and wonderful about watching the seasons change…about anticipating something new and different…it’s exciting to feel the air change from a cold chill to a warm breeze…if you’ve experienced a cold winter…you cannot wait for the spring…And because God often speaks to me through His creation…this is a perfect place for me to live…I love to stop and gaze at the sky and embrace every cloud formationAm I “Becoming”? Finally finding the authentic me? The woman that has passion in every aspect of her life? I sat quietly in a Sunday Service…and I felt absolutely undistracted..perfectly focused on what God was saying…not to the congregation…but to ME…I heard the Pastor say…”Don’t you want to know the person that God created you to be?” I heard myself breathe out an audible YES…who is she…who is Mary? Why was she hurled into this universe?…at this time?…in this part of the world?…what questions was I designed to answer?…who’s heart was I built to touch?…I wanted to know that woman…the one who was not defined by anyone other than her Creator…wow…the original me?…the authentic me? You have my undivided attention…and so started a journey of “Becoming”…and I love it…I’ve had to confront the counterfeit me…(you know the one that family and friends and life and traumas and self promotion have created)…I had to stare her down…and remind her…I will not quit until she releases my authentic self…I must know this woman…I already see glimpses of how incredible she is…what a shame it would have been if I never got to meet her…thank you Pastor…on that day you offered an invitation that I could not reject…no regrets here…responding with pleasure…I’m all in..Are you Becoming too?…I sit and watch a sunset or sunrise as though I’m at the theater…It reminds me of how great our God is…and that He is a skilled and detailed artist …I remember one extremely brutal winter…it snowed nearly every week…the trees were dry and brittle…I kept my eye on one particular tree…it was lifeless and it did not appear that it had survived the extreme cold…but I heard God whisper…”keep looking…don’t give up on that tree”….so…every day before starting my lists of things to do…I would check on “the tree“…and every day it seems even more lifeless…but I remembered God’s instruction…”keep looking..don’t give up“…I maintained my vigil through the days and weeks…and one morning as I wiped the sleep from my eyes…I saw it…a small bud on the very tip of that sad looking tree…and as the days continued there were more and more buds..until the sad looking tree was full and lush…it was alive..it always had been…it just seemed dead to me..God reminded me of the many times in my life when I had declared death…in my relationships..in my friendships…in my finances…in my emotions…in my career…in my very spirit…but as God whispered to me about that tree…He also whispers to me about all those things I thought were dead…He says…”keep looking…don’t give up…It’s not dead…it’s just dormant…waiting for me to touch it…to breathe on it…to restore life to it”…what things have you declared dead? don’t quit in your winter…spring is coming…