Growth.

I loved the saying on this mug, "Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over it became a butterfly."

I feel like that caterpillar... and I often feel like it's the end of the world... but I hope and I know that in the end, when all is said and done, I will become that butterfly.

Growth. With the coming of spring. With the tender shoots bursting forth and leaves preparing to unfurl... with the freshness of wind and sunshine... and the daffodils swaying in their yellow skirts and the tulips poking their stems above ground... there is growth. It's appropriate that I feel this growth inside me as well. I feel like I have been taken to a new level. A place where I can see just a fragment more clearly than before. A reminder that I can know it's not all about me... it's about God.... it's about Christ and His purposes and plans. and I can be refreshed in knowing that it's not up to me. This work has been done. I can rest in Him. Rest in the knowing that He has the whole world in His hands. Rest in the fact that I'm frail, fragile, and human but God works through me and in me.

I often get so lost in despair and sorrow that I can question if God is still at work in me. But it's in seeing these happenings around me that I too can see there is growth, there is work being done, there is a step forward not accompanied by three backwards. There is beauty to be found and seen.

I look at what I have pruned last fall. Things looked so dead and small and shriveled. But now I look outside and see this glory. This beautiful happening of fresh buds and tender blossoms. Small and green but full of LIFE. And I see the same in my heart. So much has been pruned and cut and discarded... but I think I detect the change. The life growing. The seed that looked dead is coming around. It's growing and creating deep roots and shooting up tall with branches stretched high.

My heavy heart is left behind with the deadened leaves and the bare branches... it has become full of life and newness and freshness and hope. It's time for a new beginning.