This morning I walked into my office and noticed that my crepe myrtle tree has buds on it. They weren’t there yesterday, and today I’m amazed at how the Lord has designed spring to be. Over the past year, I planted so many flowers and trees in my new yard, and now it’s like I’m experiencing spring for the first time. I see the redbud trees everywhere (including my back yard) and, as my best friend always says, “they’re the best reminder of spring and beauty – they show up in the most unexpected places where it’s dark and dead looking in the forest, then their purple flowers come out and shout SPRING IS HERE!”

As I marvel each morning at the new buds, the tulips coming up, the grass getting green again, I feel the wonder of a small child. I can’t remember ever feeling this about spring, ever being this aware of the slow opening up of the flowers and the budding of the trees. I’ve always seen it as something that just “happens overnight” – but it takes time and it’s marvelous.

Each day something new appears and I’m reminded that there is nothing ordinary about spring. There is nothing ordinary about the Lord. There is nothing ordinary about His love for us.

How often are we considering that? How often are we preaching about it? How often are our parishes about the extraordinary?

As we enter into the Easter season, choose to find these simple moments as extraordinary, to see the joy in the flowers blooming, the trees budding – and then carry that joy into your ministry, your preaching, your work life, your families. See the marvels of the world as a gift to you, as a sign of the Lord’s unending, marvelous love for you, let it transform your countenance and radiate God’s love.