It’s the closing bell of winter and I’m watching the changes in the plum tree out my study window. Each day, a few more puffs of white blossoms appear transforming one bloom into clusters of sweet smelling flowers clinging to bare branches.
In this season of Lent, we’re focusing on the stewardship of pain. This descriptive phrase in itself is anathema to what society teaches us. We’re indoctrinated to avoid, silence, ignore, and medicate pain. How about walking through it? Is that too extraordinary of a thought?
My healing started when I quit living in fear and started honoring the long forgotten little girl in me, the one God knew intimately and created for His purpose.
Peace is the harvest of an honest life. Getting there requires examining oneself while acting on each subsequent self-evaluation with enlightenment. Obviously, it takes discipline to live this way. At the time, it can be excruciatingly painful, but if I follow through the stations of vulnerability, to epiphany, to service, I become trained by the process, and enjoy the resulting privileged benefits of reaping the peaceful harvest of an honest life.
One of my favorite things we did as a family growing up in Lebanon was go on picnics. My parents weren’t into spending money on going out to eat, or the movies, but they sure could entertain with scrumptious picnic food and picturesque rest stops. Daddy loved to drive up and down the Lebanon mountain ranges discovering hidden archaeological ruins in obscure villages.
Look how broccoli flourishes in the dead of winter in Texas! It’s its time and season to do so. I know it sounds silly, but today, I’m grateful for broccoli!