March 16, 2007

Resurrection by Nicol Sponberg

I'm at a loss for words, there's nothing to say
I sit in silence wondering what led me to this place
How did my heart become so lifeless and cold
Where did the passion go?

When all my efforts seem like chasing the wind
I've used up all my strength and there's nothing left to give
I've lost the feeling and I'm down to the core
I can't fake it anymore.

chorus:
Here I am at the end I'm in need of resurrection
Only You can take this empty shell and raise it from the dead
What I've lost to the world, what seems far beyond redemption
You can take the pieces in Your hand and make me whole again, again

You speak and all creation falls to its knees
You raise Your hand and calm the waves of the raging sea
You have a way of turning winter to spring
Make something beautiful out of all this suffering

chorus 2:
Here I am once again I'm in need of resurrection
Only You can take this empty shell and raise it from the dead
What I've lost to the world, what seems far beyond redemption
You can take the pieces in Your hand and make me whole again, again

You have a way of turning winter to spring
Make something beautiful out of all this suffering

Here I am once again I'm in need of resurrection
Only You can take this empty shell and raise me from the dead
What I've lost to the world, what seems far beyond redemption
You can take the pieces in Your hand and make me whole again, again

As the warm weather this week started to melt the snow of winter, I was reminded how similar our lives are to the seasons. Winter, for me, seems to be the season that lasts the longest. It starts off beautiful with that first fallen snow. It lightly dusts the bare tree branches and brightens the ground to a brilliant white, and we think "This won't be so bad." As the weeks go by with more and more snow piling on top of that once light dusting, we start to feel overwhelmed. "Will this ever end?" It is seems like we go to work in the dark and drive home in the dark. Did we even see the sun today? The snow we once saw as a bright blanket over everything is now brown and dirty from life. When I look into my backyard, it's no longer a uniform covering from my dogs going out and running wild in it. It's not pretty anymore. And when it did start to melt the other day, I was reminded that under that snow is not green grass, but a much more muted color and lots of mud from the abundance of water. Winter has not passed yet.

The night that Jeff passed away, I felt God's intervention for my family. I had no idea how I would go to the calling hours and see my brother there, and how I would talk to hundreds of people just shortly after. But God carried us through it, just as He promised He would. At that time, I felt like we would all be okay, that maybe it wouldn't hurt as bad as I had once thought it would. As the weeks and months go by, I feel like the snow is still falling and I have not seen the sun in so long! It is not the season in which I want to remain in! But I know that just as God will turn winter to spring, He will do the same thing for us. Spring will come. It's not that we will forget the terrible winter we had, so cold and dark; we will always remember it. But to have this season pass and to see light and life again would be so refreshing for all of us. He will make something beautiful out of all this suffering.

I miss my brother so much. I can't even say his name out loud most days without having to hold back tears. I think of Gwen and the kids and know that their time with a wonderful husband and father was cut drastically short. I have to remind myself that it was cut short in my eyes, but God's timing is perfect and He is not done working. I told Gwen once that I was so happy that Jeff was not the only pillar holding their home up. She is a pillar as well, and I know that where Jeff cannot stand in now, that God is.

Philippians 3:7-14 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

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