A Deliberate Act of Hope

Planting bulbs is such a deliberate act of hope.

Holding brown, dry, seemingly lifeless hunks of plants, you dig a hole, dark and cold in the bitter chill of fall. You move aside debris – dead leaves, twigs, fallen flowers, dirt. You place them in the depths and proceed to cover them. They are surrounded by the darkness. They are weighted down with the soil. They are unseen to the casual observer. They lie there with no visible progress for months, waiting, longing, for spring.

And yet.

Here is where the plant prepares. It drinks up the rains and snows. It absorbs nutrients from the surrounding soil. In this quiet, dark hibernation, it rests in preparation for the incredible shock of growth that will come.

Here this season, if the bulb is planted wisely and well, will provide, quite literally the roots and energy for the next season. And this life is similar: just as God built seasons that reflect the growth of plants and trees, weather and animals, he lovingly, mercifully, purposefully gives us seasons as well.

And in the rightness of time will come a season, more glorious, more beautiful than even the beauty of springtime with its masses of color and symbols of life.

Heaven.

And there lies our beautiful, deliberate hope.