Baptism of Spring

Autumn came slowly and eventually forced us to close the kitchen window.    
Winter arrived before we realized there were now three quilts on every bed.    
By then no one wanted to get up first thing in the morning to turn on the stove    
and leave the oven door open to help heat the room.    
We all resented the unwelcomed guest of winter enough to confess all our hidden    
sins just so we could be born again in righteousness and newness of life come spring.  
 - But for now, there will be no full emersion baptism, rather only a sign of a sign    
in the cold sprinkle of a winter shower that persisted all day under the dreary skies of February.