For
I will pour out water to quench your thirst
and to irrigate your parched fields.
And I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants,
and my blessing on your children.
They will thrive like watered grass,
like willows on a riverbank.
and to irrigate your parched fields.
And I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants,
and my blessing on your children.
They will thrive like watered grass,
like willows on a riverbank.
Isaiah
44:3-4 (NLT)
Mother’s Day has gone
again for another year. My heart was full, yet breaking. My mind had peace, yet
missing her. Father’s Day will also soon come. I miss him each day, but I am so
very thankful they are together in heaven. How do I explain that I have seen
them? Words are so limiting, aren’t
they, when you try to describe the divine in earthly terms? But a picture has
been fulfilled in my heart. There at the edge of a green field, the air
permeated with the fresh tendrils of new spring growth, a lone willow blows in
a gentle wind beside a bubbling stream. Just up from it, a slight rise beckons
the two who sit side-by-side holding hands. Her face is soft and young and free
of the pain she once suffered. Her gaze rests upon his hand holding hers. His
gaze rests upon hers. And there is his smile that I’ve remembered from the
years I had with him.
I know this image in my
mind is inspired by Lone Willow Farm in Indiana. My father’s home in his youth.
The farm in my vision isn’t quite the same as I remember it. That stream would
not be just beside the tree. Always a busy working farm, it now looks at ease. Parched
fields are no more. What has been thirsty is now quenched.
“Oh, my sweet parents,
that I have loved, you have been loved so much more by Him! I may miss you terribly, but you left a
legacy—His message for those you have loved. The lives of pain you lived on
earth, now free in heaven, were never in vain. He has promised that He will
pour out His Spirit on your descendants—His blessing on your children! They shall be ‘like trees planted along the
riverbank, bearing fruit each season’ (Psalm 1:3a NLT). Just as willows
along a riverbank, your descendant will flourish. They shall be watered by His Spirt,
and thrive in His love you once lived.”
That willow tree had to
be cut down on Lone Willow Farm years ago. It gave out just like my parents.
But it thrives and lives again just like them. It beckons in my vision with
promise. What believed ended, now lives on. What believed lost, is now found.
Hope is vibrant assurance. It brings great life to your faith, and encourages you
in what can’t be seen. “No eye has seen,” Paul wrote, “no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has
prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthian 2:9, NLT). There is more here on
earth and more in heaven than you can ever imagine.
© 2018 Lynn Lacher
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