At The Scent Of Water

    Photo ©Mark Faulkner 2010

Winter is not my favorite time of year.

Things appear to be so lifeless. Dark, rainy, cold...  

I long for those hot, breezy days on my favorite river.  I love the smell of sage brush when the fragrance is magnified by the heat.  The scent of wild roses and what smells like wild apples drifts down the canyon as the cool of the dawn burns away in the mid-morning sun.

No matter how dead the grass and trees look during the dormancy of winter, after what seems like forever, the cottonwoods finally begin to bud and tiny green blades of new grass poke up through the dry, matted lawn.  The dreary, gray blanket of winter begins to be replaced by the sunny blue skies of spring.

What season is your marriage in right now?

Are things dormant? Dreary, cold, lifeless...

You can experience the exhilarating season of spring in your marriage again.  

But first you have to break up the hard soil of your heart.  Our heart is like a garden. The soil gets compacted, hard and dry from the heat of summer.  The soil needs to be moistened and then broken up, nurtured, prepared, and  ready to receive seed.

Without the long, damp season of winter, our garden would be a parched desert.  The seasons of life are necessary.  Things have to die to bring new life. The once vibrant, green leaves of spring, eventually decay and fall to the ground.  But the soil will not be fertile again until the leaves die and nurture the soil. Our cascading rivers would not exist unless snow covers the mountains in winter, and then melt in the spring, to eventually return to the ocean where the cycle can begin all over again.

I have seen a dead garden begin to breathe new life at the scent of the rains of spring.

How often that has happened in my own heart... and in my marriage.

It has to start with my heart first.  The newness of life cannot bloom in a hard, dry desert. Seeds cannot be planted in hard pan soil.   We need brokenness. The soil needs to be plowed. 

Pray for rain.

Only the living water of God's Spirit can cause a dormant, dead or dying marriage to bud again and bring forth leaves and fruit.

Job 14:7-9

“For there is hope for a tree,
      If it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
      And that its tender shoots will not cease.

 
Though its root may grow old in the earth,
      And its stump may die in the ground,
 
Yet at the scent of water it will bud
      And bring forth branches like a plant."

The newness of life cannot bloom in a hard, dry desert. 

A marriage cannot be restored and bloom in a heart hardened by bitterness, resentment, selfishness and unforgiveness.

Only the living water of Jesus Christ can turn a barren desert of a marriage into a garden of delight. If you know the Source...ask Him for rivers of Living Water to fill your heart to overflowing. Pray for His rain.

Allow the flow of living water to moisten and soften your heart.

There is hope.


—God is Love and Love Never Fails.