In The Bulb There is a Flower

Don't be mad.  But I need to talk about Ecclesiastes again.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 has been my theme psalm all summer.  It started the night before my orientation and commissioning service when I spoke the words over and over again until I fell asleep.  I sang The Byrds all the way to orientation and took a deep breath when my clinical supervisor got up to preach during the commissioning service and read a poem based off of Ecclesiastes 3.

On Friday, one of the staff chaplains was doing a devotion after morning report.  "Let's start with Ecclesiastes," she said.  I almost cried.  Actually, scratch that.  I did cry.  I cried when I heard those words, when my site supervisor read a proclamation to us about moving on, I cried when I said goodbye to the interns that I grew so close to this summer and I cried last night when I started to think about what, exactly, happened in my 11 weeks at Grady.

But hearing the words, "To everything there is a season," was the perfect way to bookend the summer, to put a period at the end of the last sentence of this chapter in my life.

This morning in church, this was our closing hymn:

In the Bulb There Is a Flower

In the bulb there is a flower, in the seed, an apple tree;

in cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!

In the cold and snow of winter there's a spring that waits to be,

unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

There's a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;

there's a dawn for every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.

From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,

unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;

in our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity.

In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory.

unrevealed until it's season, something God alone can see.

I love the last line of each verse - "unrevealed until it's season, something God alone can see."

For everything there is a season.