Years ago, when I first worked for the government, I had a one-year temporary position that we hoped would be converted into a permanent position. At the end of the year, however, funding had not been found. At my goodbye party, I was given a poster with a barren winter tree in the left foreground, a snow-covered hill behind, with the snow melting as it passed the tree, forming a growing stream as it flowed off the bottom of the picture. The words superimposed on the picture read: “Sometimes what appears to be the end is merely the beginning.” That's how today's lessons speak to me. It is the model of all creation that we see in Scripture and find confirmed in life all around us as spring flows from winter.

Take some time to read the lessons again, slowly. Let the words soak into your heart as the indwelling Spirit that Paul describes in our epistle, as we see in Ezekiel's dry bones and Lazarus’s coming out of the tomb--new life coming from what appears to be no life. Throughout life, we all experience what feels like death as we go through the various losses that come our way, the loss of a job, the loss of our health, the loss of a relationship, the loss of a loved one, for example. Initially, we can't imagine that new life will come, but over and over it does, and we learn to trust In the Beloved to see us through the despair and hopelessness of our grief and mourning. One day when we least expect it, we come to wake up to joy, to recognize the new life opening before us, and our hearts are filled with thanksgiving and praise.