We are now more than 5 months without a drop of rain in the mountains. This is not drought. It is the dry season.
Many fields are withered and brown. Only the well-established trees have survived. The immature trees have for the most part died unless hand-watered. In the next month the first rains should start to sporadically come. But right now, it is the kind of dry that within an hour most of my washing is dry, even at night, and without daily oil application my children grow reptile scales.
However, in the past few weeks I have noticed dry branches of a common tree bursting into soft yellow blossoms. But the rains have still not come. From all appearances a few weeks earlier, these trees were dead.Just dry, unattractive branches.
‘How can something so dead-looking blossom five months into the dry season?’ I ask my friend who has grown up here, as we drove to the weekly market.
‘I don’t know… it just happens.’ He laughed. ‘But, when they start to blossom we know the rains are coming. Watch them – they will become even more beautiful over the next weeks.’
As I pass them each day, I now imagine them singing, ‘the rains are coming, the rains are coming’.
These trees know their season. They have conserved energy and prepared for this time of the year. It’s like they bravely come out before the rains, using their energy reserves to bring beauty and hope at the end of a dry, barren season. Perhaps they were created for this.
Which of us are also created to come out into blossom in this season? For there is a well of healing and hope within us who believe in Jesus, our risen Lord. Strength enough to blossom in dry and desolate seasons. To declare to others the rains will come. That even now blossoms are budding and springing to life.
Isaiah 35
The desert and the parched land will be glad,
The wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like a crocus it will burst into bloom;
It will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way, say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be Strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.’
In this season, as Corona virus has flipped our world upside down, there are many unsteady knees and fearful hearts. Let us be those who point to The Morning Star ushering in the dawn. May we speak confidently in our hope of resurrection life to things that appear dead.
Together, like these desert blossoms, let us sing, ‘the rains are coming’ to dry and thirsty hearts.
Dear church of the Lord Jesus Christ, now is our season to sing.
Love Hope
End note: A week after I started being captivated by these desert blossoms and writing this piece, the first tiny drops rain graced our land in the mountains. My son and I danced and celebrated in it.
Hallelujah in the Mountains 