Lenten Glory: spring is coming

I think during Lent, the universe knows what she’s doing.

Buds take their time opening, rain drops bring gloomy skies and sustenance to dried out ground roots, and the air changes her scent.

But it’s a slow transformation, because the journey from Jesus-as-man to Jesus-as-dead to Jesus-as-risen-King-glorified, well, that took a while, too.

It was seven years ago in March that Travis proposed, and our new love beckoned us into spring, deeper into the heart of the Father and into His steps for us. We rejoiced then, as we waited and watched those flowers around us bloom, and into marriage, into having children, every Lent and every spring since then brings us back to the throne again and again.

Even my boys ache for the spring. Even they know that something is coming, some promising glory to cast out their shame and despair.

We’ve got a fireplace full of soot and ashes. And soon, we’ll scoop them out and dispose of them forever, our own sort of cleansing after the fire of winter dies down.

I’ve felt a little heavy-hearted lately, for a few reasons I know of and a few I don’t quite understand.

But maybe it’s my own heart’s slow gravitation toward her Master, toward her risen King, and in the meantime, she waits quietly and mourns that she’s not quite whole.

Maybe my boys need to hear the birds sing and watch crocuses bloom, so they can celebrate with the kind ripening of Lent-turned-Easter.

The universe invites us to join her in the quiet rhythm as we clean out our own homes, as we crack open windows and stare outside a while longer.

This is the Lenten glory of all creation, as, hand in hand, we baptize ourselves in the spring showers of endless grace, in preparation for more glory to come.

Hallelujah.