I’m checking every day for signs of life in my flowerbeds.
So far, not much.
I keep hoping for a daffodil unfurling or a hyacinth bobbing its head.
Nothing in bloom but my faithful camellia. In order to expand my search, I drag
Jerry to the state botanical gardens. That poor man has had to stomp every square
foot of that place four seasons out of the year. Winter drives me there,
because I know somewhere in those gardens I will find blooms. I don’t even care
what kind, and it doesn’t have to be big, just some harbinger of spring to give
me hope on grey January and February days―a signal the cold won’t last
forever.
We walk into the conservatory and are greeted by this bower of orchids
and roses designed for an upcoming event. It cheers me right up.
When we press on outside, the garden rooms are mostly down to the bones but we keep searching and find this path of hyacinths shouting glory.
The Psalmist prayed, “Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies
may see it and be put to shame, for you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me”
(Psalm 86:17).
All of these nods to Spring are signs of God’s goodness. When the enemy
launches in January or in a wintry season of your life that feels as raw as the
first month of the year and says, “Hey, this is never going to end. It’s always
going to be this bleak.” Well, look for signs to the contrary. Search them out.
Watch for the ways God is saying, “I’m here.”
It was Spurgeon who said, “Remember the goodness of God in the frost of
adversity.”
I’m joining with others who are reading through the gospels in February
using the Message. I come to Matthew 7:13, the last lines of The Lord’s Prayer,
“You’re ablaze in beauty! Yes! Yes! Yes!.” My heart leaps at the proclamation.
God’s beauty is always ablaze if we have the eyes to see His working and if we
take the time to notice.
So, in this fractured, fragile, weather-beaten world, let’s make it our
aim today to see His beauty ablaze in the people and landscape around us. Let’s
be intentional about praising Him for the ways He is manifesting to us His glorious,
unfailing goodness.
Every single petal of goodness.
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