I walk my dog almost every day, and there are many things to discover on our walks.

Fritz Lorincz, the fox hound

Fritz is a hound, a fox hound mix, so he scents and scouts out the neighborhood constantly.  We do have some ground rules–turkeys are okay to “hunt” and you can bark at them, cats are not for hunting and do not appreciate you attempting to chase them, that sort of thing.  Usually, and much to my chagrin, Fritz’s discoveries end up in his mouth–paper, a random sock, crushed up beer cans, you name it.  But imagine my surprise when last week our greatest discovery was in our own driveway!

          For most of the winter, there was a huge pile of snow at the end of the driveway.  Just a mound of old, gross, persistent snow.  The driveway at the parsonage is easy to plow, fairly flat and slightly downhill.  So the plow guys can come through just a few times and pile up the snow near the wooded area at the end of the driveway and be on their merry way.  All the snow has been melting in the yard as April is finally upon us and the weather is warming up, but there was that one pile of snow that would not disappear.  A constant reminder of winter.
The piles of snow on the left, snowdrop on the right

As Fritz and I were about to walk into the house, we both stopped in our tracks, no kidding.  There, at the end of the driveway, we saw just a small pile of snow remaining.  And right next to that small pile of snow–snowdrops!  One of the first signs of Spring.

          Snowdrops in the very spot where the snow has piled up and depressed us all winter.  Perhaps there’s a biological reason for this, perhaps that once huge pile of snow made the soil richer and therefore more likely to yield this lovely spring flower?  But forgive me for getting a little sentimental–it dawned on me that perhaps this is how God works in our lives.  In the very spot that seems most hopeless, a small sign of hope somehow, someway appears.  Hope appears before our very eyes, but we have to stop and pay attention to truly see.  A blossom, just as persistent, right next to that small pile of snow.  A sign of spring and new life, hope springing eternal.

 

          As we look to Easter on the horizon, let us consider the empty tomb.  A sure sign of hope springing eternal.  The place that seemed most hopeless to the earliest disciples, the grave that held their teacher and friend,  was the very place where God did something new, something we can never fully fathom no matter how hard we try.  Let’s look to the empty tomb and those places in our lives that seem hopeless, for perhaps God is about to do something new!
HOPE!
 

Photos by Rev. Lauren Lorincz.