New Life and Living Hope Because He Lives

I weep with grief over the generational sin.

It is in my very roots and I try to bury the pain of  it deep.

Yet, at times the messy grief of it all hurts too much and it wells up and seeps like the sap when the nights are cold and the sun warms the days.

I go back to where I feel and see the pain. The snow is away from the trunk of the tree and the woods are murky and slippery, and we collect sap and they pour it out and it boils and steams and gradually becomes sweeter and sweeter.

I have to visit separate places now when I go back.

And I want to avoid it all together. But the promise of beauty in the woods and smoke and sap as well as the children wanting to go lures me.

I focus on the lovely and the wonder of spring and promise. The sun filters through the empty branches with remnants of last years leaves clinging on some.

And I watch her play "Pooh Sticks" and them running through the woods from bucket to bucket. 
We stand by the fire and we taste sweetness on our lips. 
We see our first robin. 
We drive home late under a round moon that is shy of being full by just one night.


And all the while I bury the pain.

I weep with sorrow;

encourage me by your word.

I used to believe that I could simply end it. Refuse to allow this generational sin to enter one more generation. The brokenness rips families apart and I wanted nothing to do with it. I vowed it would stop right here.

But it trickles from generation to generation. As much as I determine not to allow it, my very own children suffer from it too. It doesn't make any sense to them and they wonder at the brokenness of it all. After all, it is our very inheritance.

I see the spile drilled deep to let the sap-water weep out of the age-old sugar maple and the steel bucket collecting each drop that runs up from the roots. The tree brings forth life in the spring and I know the golden sweetness promised in the colourless sugar-water.

As life cycles each year we have vivid reminders that there is new life and hope and redemption and resurrection. But before life comes death.


It was on a tree that a ransom was paid and resurrection life and hope were made possible.

For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver.

It was His precious blood that ran down from His wounds and stained the wood and removes the stain from me.

He endured unspeakable agony for my sake. As I look to the cross, the red that flowed there I see His great mercy. He has caused me to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Christ's gracious sacrifice breaks the power of generational sin.

It is only through the blood spilled and the ransom paid and repentance that will bring the end to the ways inherited.

He knows my pain and my sorrow. He bore it on the tree. He knows the sin and He took it upon Himself.

In His resurrection there is new life and hope and a new way that removes the bitterness of sin and promises the sweetness of salvation.

It is not just by my choosing to refuse it to drip into this next generation, it is looking to the precious blood of the Lamb, the Living One that gives new hope as we seek Him in all our days.

He gathers my tears and cups my face and says 'Look to me and although you may feel the heat of the fire of testing know the sweet promise of your faith being found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.'