There is something inherently depressing about a May drenched in rain, devoid of flowers. The season just doesn't feel quite right without colorful displays bursting forth against the background of lush green lawns. May should always bring about a return to life on the earth. There should be tulips in every color and the rich fragrance of hyacinth in the air. There should be blue skies and birds. Glory and beauty in every color should come bursting forth on every tree and bush. In May the world should change, revealing the transformation that was taking shape beneath April's showers.
But not this May. In this rainy May the tulips have been blown to bits and all of the daffodils have drowned. There is not a bud in sight behind all of the sky's hazy mist. It is too cold and too blustery for even nature's hardiest botany to come into bloom and too damp for life to break through the soggy earth. May's spring's pedals are trapped in perpetual April puddles.
After consecutive days of May showers I convinced that a May with rain just isn't right. This simply isn't the way the seasons should be. May should be sunny and bright not rainy and cold. That is the May I've always knows. That is the May I've come to cherish and anticipate all April long.
But then I noticed something in the rain, something that shouldn't be worth noticing. I noticed a metal roof atop a little old shed. On the bright red metal roof, in the drenching rains, cascading water came rushing down the bright red roof. I watched as the torrential downpour beat against the roof and came flowing off its surface by the gallons, tumbling to the earth in bucket fulls.
The sides of that old rickety shed looked so weak I wondered how they would hold up under the weight of the pounding waters. Surely at any moment the sides would collapse under the weight of the heavy rain being blown against the little building in the mighty winds. But the building didn't fall. The rain kept coming down and the roof kept sending the rushing waters down its slanted, slippery surface right onto the ground below.
And that's when I saw it. I saw spring.
Here I had been waiting for the rain to stop for spring to arrive in the sun and all the while spring was in the rain. On the roof of that little shed I saw the enduring life I was looking for in the flowers and bushes. Despite the winds and rains blowing against the weak little shed, the roof kept it standing. It sent the rain off in a cascading river of glory. With mighty strength the roof cast off the burden of heavy waters that would have been too much for the little shed to bear. Under the protection of the metal roof the building was saved. The little shed stood because the roof wouldn't let it fall.
That, my friend, is the true meaning of spring. The truth and glory of spring is not in the color on the flowers or the fragrance in the air, it is in the sustaining power of God to keep His beloved safe and secure through every season of life. Spring's beauty is in the proclamation that God is faithful. Spring arrives with the reminder that God has not forgotten His own or abandoned His creation. In Spring we remember that God stands as our protection when the rains come and when the wind blows. Even when our shed feels far too rickety to survive the storm, spring comes to assure us that God's beloved will endure.
Spring is not in the daffodils or the blue skies. Spring is not in the month of May or the return of the birds. Spring is in the saving and sustaining grace of Jesus Christ and He will be our eternal spring no matter what May may bring.
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