Jesus is a Perennial

As many of you know, gardening is one of my new hobbies. I'd love to someday have a house where I can put in a real garden, but seeing as those days are in the far, indefinite future, I'll have to be satisfied with my potted plants. However, when putting in a full garden, you're working with basically 2 kinds of plants - annuals and perennials. Annuals last only one year, you'll have to buy new plants and replant next season. Perennials last longer than that, simply going dormant through the winter and reviving when spring comes again. God used this concept to really speak to me about Himself yesterday, and I'd like to share it with you. For several years now, I've been going through a winter in my soul. It began sometime while I was living in West Africa. I'd have warm days every now and then, but basically it just felt like everything inside me was cold and dead. I began to forget what it was ever like to feel fully alive spiritually. I began to wonder if I could ever feel alive again, or if I was just doomed to this surviving-but-not-really-living existence. During this winter of my soul, God blessed my life immeasurably by giving me my precious husband, and now looking back I think it was His way of letting me know that He hadn't given up on me, His way of keeping me from losing hope. He allowed my winter to last as long as it needed to to accomplish His purpose in me, and now for the first time in a long time, I'm beginning to feel the warmth of the sun (Son?!) again. Spring is coming! So the lesson that God gave me in this is that Jesus is a perennial! Our spiritual seasons don't follow the calendar year like those in gardening, so most of us don't know our winter is coming until we find ourselves cold and dead, devoid of passion, unable to conjure up the energy to care. But the seed of life that Jesus placed in us when we received His grace and became His children does not die. It's a perennial. It simply goes dormant - it loses its fruit and leaves, turns black, for all intents and purposes looks dead. But He doesn't let it die. He just waits patiently for Spring to come again. No matter how cold or harsh your winter is, no matter how long it lasts, He is still alive, waiting patiently for your bitter frost to thaw under His loving warmth. Then, when the time is right, He blossoms it forth into new life again, spreading it even larger than it was before. Those of you in a dark and cold season of your soul, don't give up hope! Jesus in you doesn't die when those harsh seasons come. He is a perennial!