Four hundred pounds of grass seed lay dormant beneath the cracked red clay. Rain was just what it needed to germinate. A haze of green now blankets the field and I inhale deeply, releasing a prayer of gratitude with every glimpse. I am beyond grateful for the rain that soaked into the ground as I slept. I have always been skeptical of forecasts but I have learned to rely on the perfect provision of my heavenly Father.
Once towering hardwoods and pines, our acreage across the street that took a beating during Hurricane Helene over a year ago has lain barren for months. We worked hard to get grass established early in October but our timing was off. Heavy rains delayed us further and the seed went in early November just before several nights of below freezing temperatures. We aimed our hopes heavenward and we were rewarded with summer like temperatures this week before Thanksgiving and last night, rain!
Most evenings, my husband and I walk Jake, the Great Dane, across the road, envisioning together what could be. Jake, who is nearing his eighth birthday and not moving as fast as he once did, unless of course a squirrel or a rabbit wanders into his fenced domain, sniffs ever widening circles around us. His head goes up as deer sprint away beyond the tree line. It’s still rough terrain but it’s beautiful. A little piece of heaven on earth, my husband likes to say.
The wind the morning Helene tore through was not unlike the wind today. The warmth of the sunshine made today’s steady breeze refreshing but I can still hear the sickening groans that September morning followed by loud cracking and boom! It took a solid minute for me to realize trees were falling. I stepped onto the back porch in time to see a second and third go down across the entire width of my neighbor’s yard. Out front was worse. So much devastation in under half an hour. The acres across the street have been a constant reminder.
Our home was untouched. So many lost everything and without flood insurance, were unable to rebuild. If you weren’t personally impacted, you know someone who was. Ours was not the only natural disaster in the country, much less the world. We are increasingly connected via the internet to people we may never meet. We cringe when tragedy strikes families across the globe and we do what we can to help. We volunteer, fund relief efforts, and pray.
When Martha and Mary’s brother died, friends came from Jerusalem to Bethany to console the sisters and to mourn for Lazarus. The sisters had sent word to Jesus. He had delayed two days before coming to Bethany. Martha hurried to Him outside the village.
“Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.
Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.”
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.
Do you believe this?””
John 11:21-26 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/jhn.11.21-26.NASB1995
I am reminded of the time Jesus questioned His disciples, prompting Peter’s confession.
““Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 16:13-17 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/mat.16.13-17.NASB1995
Martha’s grieving heart answered Jesus truthfully. She tried desperately to give Him the benefit of the doubt. If You had only been here, my brother would not have died. Even now I know that whatever You ask God, He will give you. When Jesus confided that her brother would rise again, her reply, though one of faith, fails to recognize the truth of what she had just confessed. I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day, but…
Jesus gave many signs, proving He was the Holy One of God, Messiah, the Promised One. He turned water to wine, He healed lepers, blind, and lame, He fed thousands with a child’s meal, He walked on water, and He raised the dead. Every prophecy about His birth, death, and resurrection came to pass. I have no reason to doubt that every remaining promise will be likewise fulfilled.
I will never forget the sign above the door leading to the nursery at the church we attended after Paul and I married. It was a play on words from Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth. (15:51) It read, “We will not all sleep but we will all be changed.” Paul wrote of the certainty of Christ’s resurrection and what it teaches us of our own. Ours is a resurrection life but to be resurrected, you must have first been dead.
“You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away.
Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.
He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.”
Colossians 2:13-14 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/col.2.13-14.NLT
I was dead, as dead as Lazarus, deader in fact, because my sin separated me from God for all eternity. I was under wrath, already judged and condemned.
“When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.
But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”
Romans 5:6, 8 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/rom.5.6-8.NLT
“What shall we say then?
Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
May it never be!
How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
For he who has died is freed from sin.
Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 6:1-2, 7, 11 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/rom.6.1-11.NASB1995
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
Galatians 2:20 NASB1995
https://bible.com/bible/100/gal.2.20.NASB1995
I am alive! In Christ, I am a new creation. I am not what I will be when He returns, but He has given me His Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing everything He has promised. He enables me to stand firm in Christ. (II Corinthians 1:21-22)
“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
1 Corinthians 15:58 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/1co.15.58.ESV
He’s Alive ~ Don Francisco https://youtu.be/70qk6tLHht4?si=sPySUvA2SyHJluv-
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