First signs of spring

It's spring! Or at least it feels that way today. Spring in Denver has a way of teasing you with 70-degree days, then blasting you with an ugly reminder of winter. I took this photo today of the first flowers of spring at the entrance to the condo complex where I live.

Spring this year seems especially welcome. We've had a crazy winter. People in the Denver area have become spoiled by our drought-winters; it snows only a couple of times, then remains "perpetual spring" the rest of the season, with 50- and 60-degree temperatures the norm. This year where I live, we had four feet of snow on the ground by New Year's Day. The snow melted by mid-February, but you would have thought people here were stuck in their houses for months. Everywhere I went, people told me how sick they were of the weather. (The truth is, we don't know what REAL winter is here . . . )

Every year I am surprised by the first flowers of spring, the purple and yellow blooms that push through the cold, hard earth to reveal their brilliance. Not far behind are the happy daffodils and elegant tulips that bow in the breezes of April. We plant the bulbs of these flowers in the autumn, then forget about them all winter long. As the snow falls and the winter winds whip across the landscape, something is happening underneath, even though we can't see it. It takes months to see the signs of spring, but it never fails -- the flowers always bloom.

It reminds me of a life lived with God. Sometimes the winters of our lives seem to last forever. The snows fall, and the winds seem unbearable. But before winter ever started, God planted a seed in our hearts to germinate underneath the barrenness of winter. We are convinced the spring will never come. But just like the surprise of the first flowers of spring, the seeds of our hearts seem to bloom out of nowhere, and suddenly winter starts fading. The grass turns green again. Out come the daffodils and tulips. The trees start budding. And everything becomes new again.