Lent: Day Thirty-five

Today is the last Monday in my Lenten observance. My wife and daughter went out to explore Death Valley after visiting Hoover dam yesterday and I have finished my conference presentation. I can now relax a little.

Death Valley and the surrounding desert is not its usual arid self this year. There has been so much rain in the last few months that the valley and surrounding hills are in full and glorious bloom. There are even small shallow lakes and ponds in depressions on the valley floor. Those who know say this has not happened in their lifetimes or since people have been actively recording information about Death Valley, over eighty years. The following pictures will give you a glimpse of that efflorescent life and the living water feeding it (compliments of my wife and daughter).

View from the dry bones
Death Valley seen from a driftwood perspective
Water!
Death Valley's rarest moment -  a pond!
Flowers begin to carpet the ground
Death Valley beinning to bloom!
It’s alive!
Death Valley blooming!

Much like the dry bones in Ezekiel’s vision, the seeds that had lain dormant in the dust of one of the most desolate places on earth have sprung to life, a testimony to the abiding providence of God.

Our lives are sometimes like that. There are seeds in us that lie dormant for years, then given the right circumstances spring to life, matching God’s timing, not ours. I think that hope is one of the reasons we do things like taking Lenten journeys. We try to give God a chance to bring some of those dormant seeds of our Christian walk to life, allowing them to bloom to the honor and glory of God.

May God bless with the water of his grace the dormant seeds of your Christian life as we approach the glorious morn of Easter. May you flower abundantly, producing verdant blooms where once there was only dryness, to the honor and glory of the God in whom we live and move and have our being. Amen.