I thought I'd lost this blog in a computer crash back on March 20th, so it never got posted, but I found it today!
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So it is the first official day of spring, and I must say that here in north Georgia it is very spring-like indeed! As I sit on my front patio to write this the birds are active and chirping all around me, the bees are buzzing from plant to plant, the spring flowers have blossomed into beautiful purples and yellows, and the trees and other plants have begun to bud. I love this time of year when everything that was seemingly “dead” comes back to life all around us!

How appropriate that we are in the middle of the Lenten season and getting ready to celebrate Easter in just a few weeks. Just as Jesus’ followers must have felt that things looked so bleak in those days after His death – like winter, when everything is lying dormant and frozen over - on that third day He rose from the dead – just like a flower bursting open in the spring! What a glorious day!

I have been experiencing my own figurative “winter” these past few months. Anyone who’s been keeping up with my blogs lately knows that I got very sick in January and that is has lasted on and off for several months (and I know it’s been the same for many of you this year, too!). I’ve been longing to be healthy and whole again – and to be strong and ready to get out and do all that my heart desires and all that I feel called to. It’s so easy for us to become discouraged when things don’t go as “planned,” isn’t it?

It makes me think of Jesus’ followers, who never imagined God’s plan would be the Cross. They never thought the Messiah would have to die to fulfill God’s plan. In fact, it must have seemed to them at that time that the Messiah had failed…or worse yet, that Jesus wasn’t who He said He was to begin with! They never imagined He would raise from the dead. To them it was over. They watched Him breathe His last breath, dying on that cross. They watched as they pierced His side and as He was laid in the tomb. The story was over. Resurrection hadn’t entered their minds!

When Mary went to the tomb the day after the Sabbath, she certainly didn’t expect to find anything out of the ordinary. Here’s the account of that morning as written in John 20 (The Message):

1-2 Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, breathlessly panting, "They took the Master from the tomb. We don't know where they've put him."

3-10Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. They ran, neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter. Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in. Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself. Then the other disciple, the one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the evidence, and believed. No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home.

11-13But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus' body had been laid. They said to her, "Woman, why do you weep?"

13-14"They took my Master," she said, "and I don't know where they put him." After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn't recognize him.

15Jesus spoke to her, "Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?"

She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, "Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him."

16Jesus said, "Mary."

Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" meaning "Teacher!"

17Jesus said, "Don't cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, 'I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.'"

18Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: "I saw the Master!" And she told them everything he said to her.

Even then, the disciples were in disbelief. How could it be? I think that most of them really didn’t believe it until they saw Jesus with their own eyes – and in Thomas’ case, touched His hands and side. But as Jesus told them, “’So, you believe because you've seen with your own eyes. Even better blessings are in store for those who believe without seeing’" (John 20:29).

How is that we have come to count on the flowers pushing through the ground each spring and the leaves returning to provide us shade year and year without thinking twice or worrying whether they will – and yet we have such a hard time believing that God will really do what He says He will?

Perhaps the problem is that we weren’t really listening when He gave us “clues” in the first place! Jesus tried numerous times to explain to the disciples what was to come. Lord, give us ears to hear you.

The truth is that God is always at work in and around us whether we see it, expect it, or recognize it. I dare say that I believe He is even at work at times when we don’t welcome it! Gently, patiently, faithfully…He pours His love into our lives. Just as God renews the plants and flowers year after year, we can count on the fact that He is renewing us. We will grow, change shape, blossom, lose pieces of ourselves, lie dormant at times – just as He continues to water us, pull out the weeds, prune us, shape us, and speak life to us. We can count on it as long as we have breath.

No pit is deep enough His love can’t find us. No problem is so consuming His presence can’t surround us. No tree is so dead that His words of life can’t revive it. And our Savior’s love is so powerful that the grave simply could not contain it.

That is the kind of God we serve – the kind of God who takes what is dead and raises it to life again – for His glory! Let it be so in us!