God Still Reigns

In my devotional today that I’ve been reading for Lent I was reminded of the words of Romans 51 through 11 that tell us to think about hope because Christ suffered and died and reconciled us back to himself. We have hope because Christ identifies with our sufferings and has dismantled death through and through. 

The irony of reading this text to me felt too real. 

There’s been so much death lately. There has been so much loss. Whether it’s the physical death of people that we love and know not just our family not just our neighbors but people all around the world were dying because of this virus. Or the loss of some thing routine something that we know something that we feel safe by. Or it’s the loss of relationship of connection. Or maybe it’s a loss of getting to do something that we love every day for an uncertain. Of time. 

My devotional asked me what are the signs of hope in my midst? What am I noticing that allows me to still Space feel the presence of hope. 

I started to think about all of the babies I’ve seen that have been born recently. I started to think about the signs of spring. The fresh air that feels almost to fresh it nearly is suffocating in a good way. The blue sky that blankets the earth. I remembered that I volunteer told me that she was beginning to notice that her tulips were budding. I’ve started to notice more laughter coming from outside my walls more people walking their dogs. I’ve seen green grass in remote places and I’ve heard and seen the chirp of robins almost daily. 

Then I began to notice that creation has remained largely untouched by this pandemic. Creation is still living and breathing and doing what it does and following the natural order of things. 

Creation might be the life of me during this season. It might be The fresh air, or the walks outside, or the chirping robins, or the signs of spring that give me hope in the season. 

So often, we ignore creation,. So often, the effects of our human living affect creation for the worst. So often we see our mark and we are driven to make creation into something that works for us and we take it for granite when it does. 

But now, What if creation would lead us to find peace and wholeness and comfort and hope in a time such as this. This is not a new idea but for some reason I was realizing it a new today. 

What if, in this season we looked not to anything human but this living breathing mother earth and decided that that is what would tell us that God still reigns.

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Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.