Sometimes you get more from a book than you had expected. I was surprised by the words I read about wind the other day in The Secret Garden. They struck my soul with their depth.
Do you know the wind as I do?
There are times that I wake up and from the first moment I rouse from bed, I am fighting the wind. For many reasons I must stir and step out into the world despite the swirling I face.
The wind brings discomfort, requires great physical effort, and sometimes it blows fear and frustration straight into the core of my soul.
That kind of wind is always more than I want to bear, but there is no way around it or over it. I must struggle to walk through it.
But then a lovely book that was written one hundred years ago reminded me that the wind has a purpose:
“[Mary] did not know that, when she began to walk quickly or even run along the paths and down the avenue, she was stirring her slow blood and making herself stronger by fighting with the wind which swept down the moor. She ran only to make herself warm, and she hated the wind which rushed at her face and roared and held her back as if it were some giant she could not see. But the big breaths of rough fresh air blown over the heather filled her lungs with something that was good for her…”
When I gaze into the winds I have battled in my past, I can see the good they had for me. Those winds carried seeds of faith to me in their frightful gusts.
I don’t know why I can’t see the good seeds in the wind I face today. But I trust that they are there because I trust the One who causes the wind to blow through me.
There is that old saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. I know that is only true if I will face my battles and breathe the air God sends my way.
The God of new life blows fiercely at me today to rid my life of death and sin, and to scatter the seeds of life He has cultivated in me..
With open arms I praise God in the wind that brings His strength to my life. It is blowing for my good and for the good of those around me.
Praise the Lord from all the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do His bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds, kings of the earth and all nations, you princes and all rulers on earth, young men and maidens, old men and children. -Psalm 148:7-12
