God's Ticker Tape Parade

The view from my back yard (see white blossoms in yard behind ours)

This time of year, blossoms are falling off trees and building up in small mounds on sidewalks, in gutters, on front lawns.  Little piles of blossom petals blow across the street in the wind, swirling around in white and pink shapes, like those old Spirograph designs we used to draw as kids (those of us old enough to remember non-computer-assisted-drawing tools!)  Those falling, blowing, piling, shaping petals always remind me of a ticker tape parade in New York City, meant to celebrate returning war heroes.  Although I never attended one personally, I have watched them depicted in the movies.  It was always so grand to watch those bits of paper floating down from the windows of high-rise buildings, onto the heroes coming up the street below.

Well, one day the Holy Spirit gave me the connection: those petals we see flying all over the place always come in the spring, right near Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead, the ultimate war hero, the defeater of man's greatest enemy: death!  All those blossoms blowing across the street, piling up on lawns, in gutters, under parked cars, those are God's ticker tape parade, celebrating His Son's ultimate war victory over death!  So, my friends, while it lasts this season, enjoy God's ticker tape parade!

"But thanks be to God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ's triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume.  Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God."  2 Corinthians 2:14-15a (New Living Translation)

"But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.  For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. " 1 Corinthians 15:20-22 (New International Version)

"Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of fristfruits of all he created."  James 1:16-18 (New International Version)
--Posted by Mama O.