Last week, I went for a walk in the sunshine! I took my pruners along with me and I snipped some forsythia branches from a shrub along the bike path. Not so many that anyone would notice and does this not count as random pruning? :-) Well, I came home and stuck the branches into a vase full of water. My husband queried me on my activity, asking if this was my attempt at minimalist decorating. I replied that within a week, in the warm house, these branches would produce beautiful yellow flowers. He has learned to trust me on all things gardening, so he just smiled and I know he didn't quite get it. But this is a practice that went on in my childhood home each spring. And it reminds me of the person who, each spring, would put bare branches in a vase on the mantle in the living room. He was a gentle soul and we all miss him.
Yesterday, the yellow flowers appeared. What once looked like a vase filled with bare dead branches is now a vase filled with branches covered with happy yellow flowers, cheering on the arrival of spring.
Reminds me as well of the awe inspiring creativity of our God. To think that within those bare branches is the chemistry that produces the beautiful yellow blooms. Something that looks bare and dead really isn't for within them is the capacity to produce beauty and life and growth.
He created the forsythia bush. And He created us. At the right time,the forsythia bush, in its winter bareness, responds to the water and the warmth, and produces yellow blooms. When the Spirit of God lives within a person, and responds to the nourishing of God, what beauty is created, and how God is glorified!
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