May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!

Romans 15:13 (MSG)

 

I believe God puts beauty and revelation in nature to get our attention. God is always in hot pursuit of us, nudging us toward what is true and can be trusted in life. We must open our eyes, and especially our hearts, to receive all the wonder and wisdom gifted.

 

Years ago, around Christmas time, our family bought and moved into a house on a hill. I will never forget that first dark, cold winter. The kids were out of school for a week because of a monster ice storm. It was dark and gloomy. But out of nowhere, hundreds of dark green flowering plants started popping up everywhere on our hill. This was my first introduction to the Lenten Rose. Every passing year, I have waited with anticipation for their return. And they do not disappoint me.

 

The Lenten Rose is a living billboard that rises on cue at the beginning of Lent, just when you are convinced that it will forever be winter. The trees are grey, bare, with no signs of new green anywhere. The dirt is hard, often frozen, seemingly vacant of rising life. Even the light is grey, morose. The Lenten Rose dares to push through these impossible conditions and bloom full force. They intuit new life is coming and they want a front row seat to that miracle. Thankfully for me, you don’t need a green thumb for these hellebores to flourish. They are a hardy, resilient flower, God’s heralds of precious hope. Every year at their return, I take a blessed sigh of relief. The Lenten Rose is a positive message to our spirits: “Hold on! Easter is coming.”

 

The Lenten Rose is often referred to as “the humble flower,” because of how its ivory white, dusty pink, and purple blooms bend, as if in a prayerful bow to Mother Earth. In medieval manuscripts, the Lenten Rose was a popular artistic motif on the borders around the beautifully calligraphed gospels. Their symbolic stamina and willingness to rise against all odds was inspiring.

 

I want to be a Lenten Rose.

 

Sometimes the circumstances in our lives feel too much for the heart to bear. A friend recently and tragically lost her precious son. How do you come back from a heart broken seemingly beyond repair, a life once cherished now unrecognizable? Sometimes when I am running in the park, talking to God, I’ll say, “You expect too much from us, Lord.” And then I remember how much his son Jesus suffered. Scary darkness, unfathomable pain, a spirit crushed. And yet, with God’s help, he rose from utter defeat embracing a fullness of life the world had never seen before. Three days, three months, three years, we have no idea how much time, effort, perseverance—hope—it takes for the Lenten Rose to bloom, or for us to resurrect from our own winters.

 

In the thick of a challenging season, I question if the Psalmist can be trusted. Will the joy ever return in the morning? Fifty years on this planet, I am beginning to decipher God’s plan. It’s all about transformation. God is asking: What is your capacity, Farrell Mason? Do you truly trust me? Can you prove that you are remarkably human and practically divine?

 

God has always known the soul was up for the challenge. With many credible cold, dark branches looming in my life, I pray the same prayer Jesus did, “I commend my spirit to you and all that I love, my today and my tomorrow.” Only through surrender and trust can I try to bloom again.

 

Watershed moments in my life have come when I braved impossible circumstances, hung in, and eventually found my way to the other side. I am surprised by my resilience, but more, God’s undeniable and intimate presence beside me. Can you remember when life has humbled you before, and God made a way?

 

Prepare yourself for a winter to spring resurrection pattern in your life. Still, I have Winter seasons in my life that continue to test my inner strength and trust in God. If only after enduring my first-born son with stage 4 cancer, I would have been gifted an eternal spring. Not possible in this messy world. What I do know is that the spring arriving after a particularly bleak season is all the sweeter. The Lenten bow is a necessary posture in my life. Over and over again, I need to express my gratitude for making it through again and again.

 

Ultimately, we have to trust God’s process—and love. If you show up for the challenge, God will too, and you will rise like a Lenten rose. Reach out, even when all the spirit wants is to fade away. Notice the people and the signs God sends to help us rise. Nothing created by God, loved by God, will ever remain in the land of Winter. Love will have it no other way.

 

Reach out. Lean in. Easter will come.

 

 

****A special gift below. Red Sea Road by Ellie Holcombe. It’s pure hope!!!!••••