Pebble and Stones: A New Thing

Let no one caught in sin remain

Inside the lie of inward shame

We fix our eyes upon the cross

And run to him who showed great love

And bled for us

Freely you bled, for us

Christ is risen from the dead

Trampling over death by death

Come awake, come awake!

Come and rise up from the grave!

Christ is risen from the dead

We are one with him again

Come awake, come awake!

Come and rise up from the grave!

-Matt Maher, Christ is Risen

“Remember not the former things,

nor consider the things of old.

Behold, I am doing a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:16-19

My darlings.

You guys. I am OBSESSING over my balcony. It has become, for the first time in 5 and a half years, one of my favorite spots in our apartment. I now practically haunt the balcony, worrying over the one yellow leaf on one of the petunia plants, fussing like a mother hen over the dirt (is it too wet? Too dry? Should I add more fertilizer?). I am watching the progress of new blooms blossoming with great anticipatory delight. I am moving the wide planter of petunias and the cute little white flowers around to catch more sun during the day, like a human sundial. I am now sweeping up the floor on a regular basis. This is big, as it means I can go outside without shuddering in my flip-flops, like a nervous freshman in community bathrooms. I now try to get outside as soon as possible, both to enjoy the delightful morning sun hitting the balcony and to soak up some light after being enshrouded in the twilight of sleep. I water the flowers before I start my coffee, usually. So, yes. I am a woman obsessed.

What brought on this transformation, you may well ask? This sudden, abnormal behavior of a Anti-Green Thumb who formally forgot about watering a houseplant till it’s 6 months later and it’s wilted beyond recognition? When the New Plant Glow wears off, and I turn to other more important distractions and activities? When I buy herbs in a kind of feverish, grim resolution that THIS will be the year I enjoy fresh mint mojitos, fresh basil in pasta, fresh cilantro in ALL THE THINGS? Only to watch helplessly as they shrivel and wither and generally give up their herby ghosts?

Well, it started with the coming doom of a Very Hot Summer Ahead, and asking my beloved father to bring over the ol’ Shop-Vac and erase the effects of a long winter, with its dead and crackling leaves, its sheen of dirt and 30+plus years of who knows what? The DIFFERENCE, I tell you! I could patter out to the patio in bare feet and not cringe inwardly. Or outwardly, for that matter. I could putter about, planting flowers and moving terra cotta pots hither and yon. I could finally lay down the outdoor mats I bought without merely covering the evidence. I hung my silvery Words on Walls purchase above the chairs. And voilá, it felt like home! It felt new, like I’d never really seen it before. It finally felt like a place I wanted to be all the time. Sun-filled, flower-filled, Sarah-in-chair-filled.

When you want to be some place all the time, it’s easy to care for it. To delight in the very work of maintenance and upkeep. To try to give it the best chance possible. To gently coax it into what it’s meant to be.

And, of course, this is how God Himself sees us.

He wants to be with us all the time. He cares for us, delights over us, croons over each new blossom, over each new effort or skill learned or hard thing conquered. He gives us everything we need to grow into whom He’s made us to be. He sees us as new delightful creatures every morning, He sees to us each first thing. Every time we pray, every time we seek His kingdom in our lives, every time we practice loving others before ourselves, He is filled with a kind of pride and joy. All because He rejoices in our very existence, our very being, our very humanity. Zephaniah 3:17 even says He dances over us with loud singing!

Thankfully He is not daunted by a long winter of the soul. He is not discouraged when we dry out or start to wither or collect a little dust. Even though I am a city dweller through and through, it is easy to see why Jesus refers to God the Father as the Gardener and Himself as the vine in John 15. The Vinedresser takes away the branches that don’t bear fruit and prunes the ones that do. When we remain in the vine, remain in the branch of living with Jesus, we will bear much fruit, for God Himself sees to it, that we are pruned and trimmed and weeded and watered. He is glorified when we bear fruit, when we bloom, meaning that we show the world more of who He is. And that is exactly what the world needs.

The world needs His beauty. His truth. His grace. His gentle pruning of the things that keep us from Him and from others.

And somehow, through His mind-boggling plans, we get to be part of showing Him off to a world sick for beauty, sick for wholeness, sick for truth.

But as Jesus points out, nothing can bloom like its supposed to with remaining in the vine, without taking deep root. You see, we can do nothing without Him. We can be nothing without Him. We are built to be forever with Him. Gloriously designed to walk with God Himself in the cool of the day, and the heat of the day, and everything in between. We do nothing without the Gardener caring over us. And this is one of the best parts of the Gospel, although at first we may balk at not being able to do everything by ourselves. Flowers fulfill their true purposes by just blooming. When we can throw ourselves on the caring mercy and love of our Father in faith, no matter how many times we have to keep doing it, we will know Him. We will be with Him, just as we are intended to be. It is, truly and mysteriously, all about Jesus, doing the work in us and through us.

No matter how slowly it all seems to be taking, how long it seems to take to throw off the weight of winter, how invisible His works seem to be, we can take hope in the truth that He is attentive and loving. We can’t see what He’s doing in the darkness. We can’t even begin to know what He is doing in us, because we would be dumbfounded and tongue-tied and knock-kneed. Let’s look to the Vinedresser, because He is always doing a new thing, He will make a way where there is no way, He will create rivers in our deserts, and hope in our sorrows. No matter where we find ourselves, in wilderness, in storm, in trial, we will find ourselves at home and with Him.