I Wonder Where the Flowers Is....

My sisters will probably remember the following poem as well as I, having repeatedly scrawled it on binder covers or dividers, scribbling the margin with detailed flowers in various stages of bloom:

Spring is sprung
The grass is ris
I wonder where the flowers is

I'm thinking maybe its prominence on binder covers was designed to aggravate our English teachers.  Well, summer is now thick and I find my flowers wilting in the heat - magnificent blooms now drooping their weary heads, saying, "how long, O Lord [till cooler weather]?"

Like those flowers, my weary head droops at times and I ask the same darn question, "how long, O Lord [till I see you face to face]?"  I get weary of the daily struggles, the routine, the trials that come to strengthen me, and, yes, the absence of my babies, now very grown, and their babies.  Life can be heartbreaking when you make yourself vulnerable to love.

My savior knows my sorrow, as He must have asked, "how long, O man, until you realize I come to save, not condemn."  To the unbeliever, it appears the opposite, seeing instead a religion of laws to be adhered to.  Actually, the law was given to show us who we are apart from God, period.  Believers AND unbelievers don't live in a perfect little world and lawlessness is evidenced, or confirmed within us, with or without the law.  Our reaction to life's trials and love's hurts manifests that our hearts are continually wicked, ultimately serving to advance our own desires, protect our own self-interests.  Mothers Against Drunk Drivers will affirm that actions necessitate laws to bring about restraint, but whether the law is there or not, the action kills!  If you think I'm wrong, just give yourself a few more years.... Just when you think you have perfected love apart from God, you have opportunity to hate.  The law was given to demonstrate that fact!  The world counsels us:  Face Reality!  Thus too the law teaches us:  Face Reality -  I can't love perfectly, I can't always esteem another higher than myself, I can't NOT covet, I can't be God.  I love what my sister always says, "given the strength, a baby would kill for his bottle!" What looks so perfectly innocent and cherubic, would cold-cock me to satisfy his appetite!  That is my nature apart from God, with or without the law that manifests it.

The law declares us guilty.  Confirms our separation from our God. That's all. 

I feel very sorry for you if you remain as such because there is an alternative.  True religion and I'm not talking about the jeans brand.  God himself took on my sentence and gave me a new nature. 

In a nutshell: 
Romans 7:5
For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
1 Corinthians 15:56
The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
Romans 8:2
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
Galatians 3:24
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
Galatians 3:25
But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.