In Our End is Our Beginning

I know that the first day of spring is in March. I mark it on my calendar; I watch for the transition every year. I say to myself, "It's spring; why is it snowing?"

Really, though, for me, spring comes a little later than March 21. Now is when I start noticing that spring has arrived. The weather is warmer, the daffodils are blooming, and our crabapple is starting to bud. The trees in front of our church have large mounds of white flowers on them. When it rains, tiny petals from the trees litter the ground. Now is spring; before, we just had the promise of it.

A friend pointed out a song to me last summer called Every Season, by Nicole Nordman. It's a great song about how she finds God in every season. I hear it on the radio every once and a while. I specifically remember hearing it on January 24, on the way to work. Read this last verse (and a little of the previous one):

Even now in death,
you open doors for life to enter.
You are winter.

And everything that’s new, has bravely surfaced,
teaching us to breathe.
And what was frozen through,
is newly purposed,
turning all things green.
So it is with you
and how you make me new,
with every season’s change.
And so it will be, as you are recreating me.
Summer, autumn, winter, spring.

I remember thinking at the time that I had never noticed that the last verse was spring. We so often think of spring as being the beginning, with winter as the end. I was glad that she had written it the way she did, ending with the beginning.

Then, a few hours later, as I was working in the lab, Steve called to tell me that Jim Ray had died.

Even at the time, that day, I connected those two events in my mind. I was glad, that day, that perhaps God had pointed out to me that the end is not the end; that the end is the beginning.

I think we are called as Christians to know that reality. It's not what society teaches us to expect, but in so many ways, it is true. In times of change, the end is so often the beginning of something else. We have an endless God, who, because he loves us, even turned our death into a new season. There is not an end; there is only spring.

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
in our doubt there is belieiving; in our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
(From Hymn of Promise; Natalie Sleeth)

Images: Our crabapple tree; one of our few daffodils.