This is a peculiar little story I’m about to tell you. Yet, it is true.
My father-in-law died on September 10, a sudden death at the age of 60. He was a devout Christian and a church deacon. But something about the untimeliness of his death left my mother-in-law without much comfort.
She bravely carried her grief through winter’s bleakness, through all those barren, dead weeks. Even as spring came and waked the world, her burden seemed locked within her. The jonquils pushed up like tiny breaths of life from beneath the earth. And the lone dogwood tree in Mom’s front yard burst into new life. It opened its delicate pink buds, crowning the yard like an Easter bonnet. Mom watched the little tree from the window; it had always been a favorite of hers, as well as my father-in-law’s.
Summer withered away, children walked back to school and a leaf or two drifted off the trees in the yard. Still, Mom’s grief lingered. On September 10 it became quietly intense. But something almost magical was about to happen.
As she wandered to the mailbox that day, her eyes lighted on the dogwood tree in a moment of wonder. For there in the center of the browning yard, under a golden, almost autumn sun, the little tree had burst into bloom. It shimmered in new pink blossoms. Spring blossoms right there on the doorstep of autumn. And for Mom there was no doubt. The reality of resurrection was written in the petals that had come back to life on that day, of all days.
Later that day as I stared in bewilderment at the flowering tree, I felt drawn into the tiny miracle, too. For through a dogwood, God had sent a message of comfort in His own special handwriting: “Let not your heart be troubled, for he who believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live.”
Thank You for the promise of resurrection Lord, that keeps popping up everywhere around me, like the bulbs of springtime.
