One dark wintry day our teenage son, frustrated by the long, harsh winter, asked his Grandmother, “Will spring ever come?” Her confident response: “Yes! It always does!” In the years since, we have discovered that life comes out of death, light comes out of darkness.
As he struggled to find a new life after leaving his engineering career behind, my husband wrote the following prose that he entitled “Warm Hope.” It invites us us to glimpse the unseen, the invisible reality of the resurrection Power, in the midst of a bitter cold winter.
Warm Hope
The warm spring sun caressed his fingers
as they clutched his writer’s pen.
Through clouds it struggled to spread its joy on eager ground
that sat too long beneath the chill of winter’s breath.
Too soon the clouds won out and cast their gloom upon the scene,
and rain began to drizzle down.But the sun experienced new-found strength that morn;
it found some extra resource down inside
and cast aside the cold for long enough
that earth was quickened to its touch.If sun can break through its gray shield,
then so can I, thought one small flower,
and made its plans to meet the sun
as soon as it smiled away the frozen turf
above its winter bed.If sun can do that for the flower,
then so can I do that for me, thought he.
The one same Spirit who thought to create sun’s warmth
would bring joy to His creation
still motivates the sun in spring
to demonstrate resurrection power upon the face of the earth,
and inspires the heart of man and gives him hope.That Spirit within me will nurture the fragile flower of my soul,
and resurrect it from its tomb of darkness,
to burst through the crusted troubles of my life’s soil,
and spread its blossom before the God that warmed it into life.By Gerald Doctor