I wrote this post last year, but didn’t finish it in time to post it by Easter 2019. I post it this Easter with a few edits and an extra section.
Easter 2019
On Friday night [last April], as a [now former] coworker and I walked to the parking lot, she pointed out a willow tree whose leaves were beginning to come out. They were a bright yellow-green, hanging with a long, curtain-like elegance. “You can always tell where water is, when you see a willow,” she said. “You would not believe how much they need.”
A few years ago, I attended a women’s retreat in which one speaker walked through Jeremiah 17:7-8 (ESV):
Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.
The speaker emphasized how the tree spread out its roots to the water before the season of drought, so that when suffering came, it was ready.
When I studied the book of John in a women’s Bible study [two years ago], Jesus’s words in John 7:37 had a sweet ring to them:
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’
It’s Easter Sunday: the natural companion of Christmas Day, but with a special grief and joy Christmas only promised. Christmas is a blaze of joy in the dark of winter, Christ entering the world as a child; something to be wildly excited over, as children usually are. Easter is the beautiful, terrible time when Christ entered suffering and death as an adult, something to grieve about (that He suffered) but glory in all the more. Easter is Christmas grown up.
I’m more and more assured of one thing: the only way to live a good life (good – but no life is perfect) is to love God, trust Him, and obey Him. If I can be deeply rooted in His goodness, drawing on the wellspring of living water, then I can survive anything.
Easter 2020
Where there is a willow, there is water. I am a year older than when I drafted the words above, sitting here in awe of all God has given me in 12 months. Now, I think the water metaphor I used above was somewhat simplistic, underdeveloped, but I’ll continue it: God has led me beside still waters, this year, shepherding me to a greener valley than I imagined.
Now, I can give you more context for last year’s post. Last Easter was an uncertain time: I was considering either moving up to Portland, Maine, changing jobs, or applying to grad school. I was tired of my long commute, tired of being lonely and isolated, longing for community and meaningful work and direction.
One morning, light rain fell as I started driving up 95 North to Portland. At one point, I changed lanes and felt my car slide a little: the light rain was slowly turning to ice as I drove north. Eventually, I reached a row of red tail lights slowly shifting into the right lane: we finally crawled past a semi truck lying on its side, blocking the two left lanes, the guard rails between the sides of the highway smashed into curves beside it. A few minutes later, I passed a white minivan lying on its roof on the right side of the road.
I was an hour late to work and had a stress-headache. Over the next few hours, big, wet snowflakes fell on the city square outside, muffling the gray pavement and statue in the center. I typed the day away, prayed, and waited.
Three months later, at the end of July, I drove down a highway lined with golden black-eyed susans with a new job, new apartment, new roommate, and a new life.
I don’t write this story because it proves that God always wants to make us happy. This is Resurrection Sunday, when we remember the Messiah making peace by the blood of His cross. Our ultimate purpose is His glory – but He glorifies Himself in acts of grace to us in our present lives (like new jobs) as well as in eternity.
Where a willow is, there is water. In Scripture, water does two things: it represents life (eternal life) and cleansing. The Resurrection is Christ giving Himself for us so that we can be cleansed and have eternal life.
Living water…Good Shepherd…Savior. These eternal truths reveal themselves in my small, brief, mortal days as blessing and guidance; I am sustained by the wellspring of the author of Life, who died, was buried, and rose again.
As believers, we are willows. Glory!
Stories of Yearning 