Teach Me to Walk With Hope

In February, I began to see tiny green points pushing through the soil in our backyard. I knew the unseasonably warm weather had coerced my tulips and daffodils up too early, and their fate would most likely be a frozen death.

I’ve had a hard fall and a hard winter. When I saw my doomed flowers shoot up, I sighed and thought, Of course this would be the spring my flowers don’t make it.

On Ash Wednesday, I walked my broken soul down the aisle in tears. As the pastor said, You are marked with the righteousness of Christ, I wanted to believe this truth. The circumstances of my life were not perfect, but I wanted to persevere. I wanted to walk with God in humility and learn from Christ. He understands brokenness in a way no one else can. I asked the Lord to teach me to walk through this hard season with hope in my heart.

Over the following weeks, I watched my flower beds take shape. Some daffodils bloomed, then after a frost, laid down in pitiful submission and died. Some of tulips have tattered leaves and show no sign of blooming at all. Yet, a few have survived the frosty nights. Right now a cluster of red tulips are ready to burst into bloom. They are the color of Christ’s blood, the color of death ironically embracing my only living flowers.

These tulips remind me of the hope I have in Christ, that His costly blood has paid for my every sin, past, present, and future. My dead flowers cause me to long to be with Christ, for eternity. I can’t wait to sit with Him, eat with Him, and talk with Him among my brothers and sisters for endless days, because He is forever alive. This future hope informs my everyday rhythms now, as I continue to grapple with my sin and life in a broken world.

I hear Him whisper, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” “In this world you will have dead flowers. But take heart; I will make all things new.”

by Brittany Nye