I went to bed relatively early, and got up, if not quite making it at 5 AM, well, closer to dawn than I have in weeks. Tomorrow, God-willing, I return to work, and perhaps more important for me, I return to some good habits I let fall by the wayside. It’s a new day, as they say.
Who are they, anyway, always putting in their two cents where my life is concerned?
Well, one of them is St. Paul, and his advice is clearer than anything I’ll pick up from the anonymous they:
…it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness (and) put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves properly as in the day….But put on the Lord Jesus Christ….(Romans 13:11-14)
So I sit in the silence of my kitchen, enjoying an aromatic cup of fresh-brewed hazel-nut coffee with a splash of cream, staring out the window at the stubborn remnants of a crazy little snow storm.
My backyard, full of unmelted patches of snow, reminds me that perhaps I am like that. It’s just a regular yard — perhaps a little in transition. We fenced it for our dog, starting a continuous project of clearing and cleaning and prepping that seems endless.
This morning, I see it as a metaphor for my life — each season has wreaked havoc on the yard, bringing with it the dramatic changes that ultimately renew it and give it beauty, repeated again in the new seasonal changes. It’s always the same yard, right? But also new and different.
These days it’s looking a little tattered and in need of some work and we’re not even done with winter yet! The snowy blanket that covered my yard for almost a week changed the landscape, though. It didn’t really change anything about the yard — it’s certainly the same one, but made so much more beautiful — so much more gentle and inviting. It didn’t fix the places that need my attention in the Spring, but it softened them, drawing attention to the need but at the same time, gently re-forming it so that the entire effect is dazzling.
I thought about what Paul might have meant about putting on the Lord Jesus Christ and how He can transform us.