Spring is here!

Today was such a beautiful second day of Spring. It was bright and sunny, you can see the birds and ducks protecting their nests, the flowers are blooming... it's still quite cold, but it's just good to feel the sun again. I thought the purple carpet of flowers looked so beautiful I just had to take a few pictures.

There was this tree right in the middle of the field that reminded me of something a friend has just shared with me. He has been reading a book by Henri Nouwen entitled "The Only Necessary Thing", and he shared from a chapter called, "Converting Loneliness into Solitude." I'll just paste part of what he wrote.

"Aloneness: It is a natural fact that we alone are ourselves, there is no one in the world who thinks exactly like us, who undergoes life experience as we do. We are very unique. Now the question is how we deal with our "aloneness"?"

Then he explained that aloneness can become two things, either loneliness, or solitude. When we view aloneness as a wound, it becomes loneliness, which is something that hurts. But, we can also convert our loneliness into solitude. This can then be experienced as a gift from God, and not a wound. "So that in our aloneness we can truly see how deeply God is in love with us. When we are most alone, God is closest to us."

I told my friend that this is something I have been experiencing these couple of last weeks. I get lonely sometimes, especially if I have just spent some days with family or friends, but lately I find that I have been delighting in my aloneness, only because what I'm really delighting in is God and my walk with Him. I have realized that when I just spend time with Him I get to know Him and myself more and then I have that feeling that there really is no one and nothing more important than Him. It's like the story of a man that was studying his Bible. I don't know where this story came from but it was about how this man got a phone call from the Queen of England while he was studying and he sent a message saying, "The queen will have to wait, I'm meeting with the King of the universe!" - We see how Jesus was involved in ministry, helping people, serving them, healing them, teaching them, but we also read how he took the time to be alone to spend time with the Father.

Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. - Luke 5:15,16

Now, if the Lord Jesus needed to take the time to be alone and pray, how much more would we need it? It's like couples, isn't it important for married couples to take the time to go out on dates, without the kids, without having to think about work and bills and what not? I don't know, but I would think that it would be important to do so to strengthen the relationship, so too I think that it is good for us to take that time to spend with God, and hey, if you happen to be single and living alone then.... great! That should make it a lot easier! The Lord is passionately and compassionately in love with us... I don't know but one day, when we can see each other face to face, when we can see clearly I would love to look back and see what was really going on during those lonely times I (we) chose to spend with Him. Just like this tree, instead of having loneliness feel like coldness and emptiness, let's just be silent in Him and see how He will fill us with His love from within and beauty all around us.

12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. 13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13