.resurrection.

When I was in high school I had to do this leaf collection for science class. I am sure most people hated this project and though I am sure I will be labeled a dork, I loved it. My favorite discovery was the plant in the picture to the left. This is called Resurrection Fern. It grows on trees and goes mostly unnoticed by people. It gets its name because it looks dry, dead and withered most of the time. But after a rain, the plant opens up and comes alive again. This process repeats throughout the entire cycle of the ferns life.
I am getting so close to the end of this three years that has been so difficult and trying in so many ways. My soul has been dry and weary and battered. I have spent so much of the last three years withered (not dead). The past three years as well as all the things that are weighing on my heart right now (my future, a job, finishing in Fort Worth, my grandmother's impending death, etc.) though they are withering to the soul they are also causing me to lean into the cross more heavily. They are an opportunity for the Lord to bring the rains and resurrect what appears dead. My prayer this Easter for myself, more than for a job and more than for direction, is that the Lord would resurrect my heart. That He would grant me the grace to lean into all of these things and await the rain He will inevitably send.

Romans puts it this way: "For if we have been joined with Him in the likeness of His death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of His resurrection."

In Philippians Paul says, "My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead."

Peter says, "Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."