Seasons of Time

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

It is raining again and I am thinking of seasons. And change. A month ago, thanks to the North Eastern Trade Winds blowing across the vast Sahara Desert (can’t resist a bit of Geography) we were roasting under the dry and dusty spell of the Harmattan winds. Brown became the colour for, well, almost everything. But now when I look down the valley in the morning, it’s all lush green once more. The down side to it is that I’ve got to dust and get the mower cranking again to begin taming some over exuberant grass.

I am reminded of a spectacular seasonal change some years ago just about this time when Winter was slowly turning to Spring. I was sitting on a rugged bench at the top of the little hill in the middle of a pine grove, taking in the beauty of the cherry blossoms. I watched a man with a big camera as he aimed at the cherry blossoms, shooting them from all angles, kneeling, bending and angling sideways. And then just down the hill, there were young girls and boys, older men and women, couples… actually, a lot of couples, knocking themselves out taking pictures and selfies. I had come outside very early in the morning so I could be alone with nature but a couple of hours later, the whole grove looked like a circus.

Enter “Fairyland”

They are a wonder, those cherry blossoms. I had walked by those trees the night before on my way from work and there had been nothing interesting about them. They had looked dry and gnarled from the winter with not a single leaf on their dark branches. But then I came out the next morning and I could hardly believe that those flowers had sprung from those very same branches. They had blossomed and bloomed OVERNIGHT. And they were absolutely beautiful. The whole mountainside looked like a mystical fairy tale.

I then understood the fascination with the cherry blossoms at Spring time. And it is definitely not overrated. I sat back on the bench, and thought how so much like life the cherry blossom trees are. When things are difficult, tough and I am simply weary of just how much pain there is in one lifetime, I just need to remember that I have a Father who has it on His CV that He makes a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. The same Father who brings about the miracle of the cherry blossoms will bring about mine and yours if you trust that He can. And when the winter is past, I will open my eyes and see that all around me, there is beauty.