It is inevitable.
It is in your mailbox and your inbox.
Junk mail.

Catalogs arrive even though you never requested them.
Brochures, advertisements, and coupons that look more important than they really are.
Sometimes the throw away pile is larger than the actual mail pile.

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I saw a nest.
A nest in the beginning stages.
Tucked away from human hands but not from human eyes.
A masterpiece of creativity and resourcefulness.

Upon first inspection it looked like a regular nest.
Upon closer inspection I was surprised at what I saw.
Among the twigs and the sticks there was a piece of plastic.
Plastic that was woven into the nest with great precision.

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I love pockets and hoods.
They provide a place to put my keys and a ready-made covering for my head.
You expect jeans to have pockets, but I like when dresses and skirts have them, too.

Most of my jackets have hoods.
There is nothing better on a rainy day or windy day.
A makeshift hat right at your fingertips.

I would be lost without my hood.
If rain catches me off guard, I’m ready.
If it suddenly gets windy, I’m protected.

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There is always evidence of God’s grace as we look around us.
There are days when you have to look, really look, to find it.
It has less to do with Him and more to do with the state of our heart.
However, there are days when you just can’t miss it.

Today was such a day.

Spring is upon us; not just on the calendar, but poking through the soft ground.
Crocuses and daffodils are waking up.
Worms are wriggling away from the hungry robins waiting for a feast.
Birds are singing, announcing the new life that is happening all around us.

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We had a dusting of snow even though it is spring.
The wind that usually comes in early March is blowing now.
This is the come in like a lion part, one of my friends said.
Except it should be going out like a lamb by now.

Unexplainable.

Birds flying upward together in a choreographed dance.
Each lifting with the other; each coming down like a corps de ballet.
Each taking their cue to lift, to fly, en masse.
No one bird out-flying another; in sync.

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Cake is in the oven.
Presents are wrapped.
Card is signed.
Dinner reservations need to be made.

My oldest daughter, my firstborn, is celebrating her thirtieth birthday.
I don’t know how it happened.
One day she was playing and riding her bike with streamers on the handlebars.
Then, I blink and she is a beautiful, Godly, accomplished young woman.

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I noticed it on my walk.
There was a definite pattern in the way the snow was melting.
I saw it over and over; repeated lawn after lawn.
The snow melts first around the base of the trees.

I saw the pattern house after house.
The snow melts outward from the tree trunk.
There were large circles of grass around every tree.
The rest of the lawn was snow covered.

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In the movie, The Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man defied gravity.
There he stood in one place but his body swayed back and forth at ridiculous angels.
He would lean so far over that it seemed as if he would touch the floor.
His feet were firmly planted on the ground but his body leaned unnaturally.

I imagined that it must have been done with cameras.
No one could lean like that without falling over.
It had to be a trick, an optical illusion.
Our feet simply wouldn’t hold our weight tilted in such a way.

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I know a young man; he is a friend of my youngest son.
He wrote poignantly about his grandmother, a God-fearing woman.
Her whole life was devoted to spreading the “good news” as she would call it.
I read his thoughts and realized that she passed the baton of faith well.

This special woman died on his 24th birthday.
He writes honestly about how he decided to let everyone know when the time came.
At first, he thought, Happy Birthday to me: I lost my grandmother today.
He read the hurt and the sarcasm in those words.

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How I loved to sing to my children.
Every night before bedtime, after reading a book, after saying prayers, I sang to them.
They each had their favorite song.

It was soothing, comforting, intimate, and very precious.
It was our time.
That line right before sleep, when the sounds of the world blur and fade.

It was waited for; it was expected.
It was part of our nighttime routine.
It was the signal for the end of the day and the beginning of sleep and restoration.

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