Spring is Perspective

The smell of bacon and coffee invigorated the chilly air this morning as I stepped outside, bringing the scents of our kitchen with me. My husband was cooking. Warm familiarity seemed to blanket the front porch and green grass in the same way the overnight frost had, stimulating and soothing my senses at once. The combination of the scents of hot food preparation in frosty air is a primitive pleasure. Something about it makes one feel protected and provided for.

However, as I moved toward completing the first of the day's farm chores, which in this case was feeding the twenty-nine now feathered chicks recently relocated from our laundry room inside the house to their own heated coop outside, I began to begrudge the slowly approaching spring.

It seems to be taking spring a VERY long time to make its way here this year.

Or is it?

As I walked back across the icy lawn toward the house, it was as if I heard a voice say, "That is a matter of perspective."

Hmm. I had to think about it then, of course. Yes, I suppose it's true. Spring is approaching as it always does.

In God's good timing.

It may seem different this year during quarantine, when the things we lament the loss of--group gatherings and the hugs of friends and the enjoyment of good food in public together, seem as far away from many of us as the spring that appears tentative this year.

But maybe spring seems that way because we are more watchful of every moment in this season; we are more aware. We have time for acuteness.

We are more impatient for change.

As one who was born and raised in Southern California, adapting early on to plenty of natural Vitamin D, I greatly feel the need for more sunshine. I crave spring!

But perhaps spring isn't resistant after all, or moving more slowly than it usually does. Perhaps it is my perspective. Perhaps it's right on God's schedule, as it always is.

And then in confirmation I hear a voice say, "I am in no rush."

God doesn't need to rush.

He isn't impatient.

He has spring's perfect timing handled, he knows just when it's full blown arrival in all his glory will make the perfect appearance in each geographical region. When all buds are blooming, the leaves have returned to the trees, and the flowers are flourishing in all their splendor.

As he knows when this virus will be conquered and the quarantine will end so that we may bloom and flower in all our splendor too.

He knows the end of all things, and the beginnings too.

And I can trust that. What a relief it is to know there is Someone controlling all things. Someone who promises another spring is on the way, that we won't have to wait forever, that we are merely resting to glory right now.

Someone who promises, if only we will trust him, the best is yet to come.

Because the best is really yet to come.

Wait for it.