Within a few weeks, in spite of the storm, the bare branches began to glow with new life. It seems fitting for this season we're living through - both Easter and all the long months when everything around us changed.
After the crucifixion, when Jesus body lay buried in a borrowed tomb, things looked hopeless. He had come at a time much like the one we're living through. Many had hoped He would change the world around them - make all the injustices right. Instead He died a criminal's death on a cross. We can only imagine the despair of those whose lives had been wrapped up in His. Hope must have seemed a distant dream.
Three days later, everything changed. Jesus rose from the dead and with His resurrection all things were made new. The circumstances in the world hadn't changed. Life went on as it always had - except for those who put their faith in Him. For them - truly all things became new. Hope filled hearts once heavy with despair. They would flourish even in the midst of the most difficult of times.
May I encourage those who have lost so much during these months of grief and loss; may I offer hope to those who look around them at a changing world and fear what the future holds. Though so much around us may look dark and frightening, we have a Savior who has overcome the world. We have a Savior who holds life and hope in His scarred hands and offers them to us - the ones He died for.
A gift - more precious than any treasure we could possibly imagine - wrapped in a love we can scarcely comprehend.
"All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay." I Peter 1: 3-4
Blessings,
Linda
