Nature’s First Green . . .

I may have posted about this before, but it’s an annual spring tradition for me. When I was in high school, every year Mrs. Williams would lead us out of the classroom, down the sidewalk, and to the balcony beneath a sprawling live oak. There she’d look up into the canopy and receive Robert Frost’s poem:

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Mrs. Williams would look up into the tree and say, “Look at that–those leaves aren’t green, they’re gold! But nothing gold can stay.”

We’d go inside and discuss the poem further, of course, about how things tend to deteriorate and people age, and beauty wears out.

But as a Christian, all that fading and slow dying is nothing but preparation for the glory to come! When not only our physical bodies, but our earth itself shall be renewed and free from the curse and deterioration of sin. “Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” 2 Peter 3:13.

So every year, still, I go outside and look up into my live oaks to see if I’ve hit the right moment–the moment when last year’s leaves have fallen and the green-gold leaves of a new year have appeared. And right now, as I’m looking out my window, there they are–the gold leaves.

My husband and I are become more and more aware that we’re not so young any more. Kneeling down and getting up isn’t as easy as it used to be, and I tend to take more rest periods than I ever have. But I am encouraged. Nothing gold can stay, but it certainly can and will be renewed and refreshed . . . and I am so looking forward to that day. 🙂

Always,

Angie