Mystery Revealed

 "Listen, I tell you a mystery:  We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed -- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with the immortal." (1st Corinthians 15:51-53)

For whatever divine reason, Deb and I have moved to new ministries/homes in the fall. So it was in our move to Logansport. The leaves were for the most part off of the trees, about six inches deep on the ground, and packed into my gutters. The bushes and plants moving into botanical hibernation. We moved into a mystery. What in the world is planted all over in our yard?

It was easy to pick out the white and red river birches and the big maple in the backyard with their recognizable bark but the rest...I had no idea. I just know that my neighbor across the street said that the whole backyard was an array of color in the spring. So we anticipated the reveal. 

What a beautiful surprise. What a wonderful mystery revealed. Red buds. Tulip. Flowering Dogwood. Cherry. Burning bushes and something turning yellow by something else turning pink and white. Rose bushes (of which I am waiting to be surprised by their color). My neighbor was correct - an array of color. 

We also have some monstrous, overgrown thing that I have recently found all along the Eel River and in the overgrowth at Huston Park. It looks like a hedge type of bush/tree with bark that peels, small leaf. (If anyone knows the name of it please let me know). It looks half dead but the ends seem to have life. I know two things:  Deb hates it and my grandkids love it. It's like a little tree fort but low to the ground. I found the middle ground. I pruned it. 

I am reminded that when I look in the mirror I see, as the Apostle Paul wrote elsewhere, an unclear picture of myself. I am not what God has destined for me to be. This old body, susceptible to disease and decay, will miraculously be turned into something else. Something corruptible into something incorruptible. Something mortal into something immortal. 

The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:20, But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." 

Wow! I can't wait to see what that will look like..what that will be like. 

In the twinkling of an eye I'll turn from a half dead old hedge bush to...

I think I'll just be surprised by the reveal. 

Now let's talk about that other thing that God does in my life...pruning. 

I'd rather talk about how bad the grass looks.