Finding Spring

I am walking the dog - all alone (this introvert's dream!).  Her inability to talk is a welcome change at the moment.

I'm always listening to somebody.   The 9-year-old somebody, the other 9-year-old somebody, or the 13-year-old somebody, or even the 38-year-old somebody (though he's often a listener, bless him). 

This walk alone is energizing.  However, there's more to this gift.  It's the beginning of Spring.  And even though the trees aren't yet showing it in color, the greening undergrowth  and the birds singing their hearts out are Spring's ambassadors .  It's cool for sure, cooler than I would like; and I zip up my fleece a little higher.  But Spring is here in this bend of the trail.  I can feel it.

I love this trick of nature as new seasons come in and out.  Sometimes it feels like a bluff, but you can always call Mother Nature's bluff in Indiana.  Spring has to come.  Hidden behind a mask of what looks like completely dormant trees, the tree is doing what God designed to do... grow. 

Somehow, unnoticeable to me, trees have grown.  This same trail I have walked before houses now older trees.  Their roots are deeper and wider.  Their trunks rounder.  Some branches through time have become limbs. And now buds are starting somewhere beneath the surface.

And suddenly it hits me, that is how God does His work.  Most often undiscernible to me, God is widening roots and thickening up trunks and there's even the promise of buds underneath the couple of young, impressionable 9's, the defensive 13, the listening 38, and even this floundering 37.

Between my list of things to do, places to run the kids, stolen moments on my own or with hubs, the eternal conversations, prayers prayed, tears cried while standing knee-deep in laundry piles and a whining dog, are doing something.

Seeds are taking root.  God is growing things (1 Corinthians 3:7).  I'm standing smack dab in the middle of God's forest in Spring.  The beauty is usually lost on this distracted, tired momma.   But, God sees it.  From His perfect vantage point, seeing the beginning and the end of all things, He nurtures the growth of beauty all around me.  Every once in a while, He pulls my eyes from my to-do list and practically smacks me in the face with someone's proof of amazing growth.  And I celebrate this Master Arborist.  But mostly, I just have to know that He's working.  Working big stuff out in all His trees here.  I rest in knowing that He finishes what He starts.

And I am thankful.

Philippians 1:6