A New Year...

Have you ever felt you were trying to come to terms with too much new? This is definitely my struggle currently. New month, new year, new decade.

Then there is new house and new job.

I am really trying to be open to the possibilities within so much newness. Perhaps my struggle is that it is winter in the northern hemisphere and all around me are leafless trees and dormant grass, no flowers and mostly mud. Today did provide some beauty from snow flurries. But that just reiterated how cold and damp the air feels.

There was a time in my life when it was easy for me to see that "new" pointed to resurrection.

Hmmmm what does resurrection mean? It's definition? Resurrection means "raising up". In Christian perspective it points to a an actual event in the life of Jesus. But resurrection is also a hope for the end of the life of people. It's a hope for all of creation. It is a hope-filled perspective that physical death isn't the end, but that we will be raised up to new and ternal life retaining our personhood and individuality.

As a person who believes in resurrection, this perspective should fill me with hope and offer inspiration even during difficult seasons. However, what comes to mind is the following picture I took a number of years ago.

I don't look at these tulips and see strength of survival in shockingly cold weather. Instead, I am filled with worry about how the blossoms will survive unscarred.

Today it all feels like the calendar telling me it's the first day of spring, but the weather says, "Nope, you are caught in a polar vortex." It's freezing cold outside and I am looking for shelter to assist in my survival.

Once that picture of tulips that had bloomed was beautiful to me, right now, I see it as the tulips freezing to death.  

The word "new" describes something which has not existed before. New is about seeing or discovering something for the first time. New is about knowledge recently  acquired. New is about something that is just beginning .

With a year that has just arrived and a rhythm of life that is just beginning I hold out that resurrection is possible for me (and for you whatever it is you might be going through). I don't see the signs yet for myself. But, at least today, I am not discounting the possibility.