Exquisite Simplicity

Is there anything more beautiful or soul-satisfying than the beginning of spring or fall? Here in Virginia, both seasons usher in the long months of winter or summer. But for a few brief weeks the weather and everything in nature converge together to bring forth some of the most exquisite beauty that can be found or experienced.

This past weekend saw nature shine forth in all its glorious simplicity and gift us with glorious weather. You couldn't sit inside. And in being outside, with the sun shining forth its rays, the breeze whisping through your hair, and the glory of a bright blue sky bursting at the seams, renewed hope entered my heart. I can't say what the hope is for - maybe it is the knowledge that all the beauty and glory of nature is just an echo of what awaits all of us in heaven, with Jesus. C.S. Lewis spoke of heaven in The Great Divorce, describing it as just that - something that was brighter, sharper than what we see here on earth.

There were just a ton of ways that God spoke to me this weekend - through Father DeMartino's sermon on the Prodigal Son to the verses we looked at in YL leadership, especially John 1:5

"The light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it"

(NLT). This shouts out hope to me, the hope that both is a product of and fuel for faith - Hebrews 11:1

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

And hope and faith are what I need now - now at the "turning of the tides"...