Tiny buds

Throughout the winter months, I look at the trees and imagine what they looked like with leaves. I anticipate the leaves emerging. Since we moved almost a year ago, I've been watching the face of this town I live in change. I like it. It's a bit flatter than were we used to live, but still intriguing to me. I love little towns. Watching the different moods of the area, I keep coming back to the Bradford Pear tree in my front yard. I've never watched the life of a tree such as this. It's fall colors captured me and I gazed on it often. The fiery leaves danced in the cold wind. After all the leaves coated the ground with color, a skeleton remained. For months, I didn't seem to give notice to the tree that seemed to greet me with it's splendor and I marveled at. I began to wonder when the leaves would return. Time passed. Bare tree. Nothingness. Has my tree made it through this drought we've had? Then, before I realized it, these showed up. Proof that the tree was still alive, thriving. I just didn't know it. Dormancy fools the onlooker.

This is true in my life. The things that seem dead maybe dormant instead. I have to wait and see what He will do with these things. Trust that He is working. Moving. He's for me. Allowing painful time to pass and be Protector, Provider, Perfect. I just feel the length of all of it. I feel the loneliness. But I'm not alone. I just forget what the leaves of His fruit looked like in the winters of life. The hope of spring is still there. The waters to nourish new life fall fresh. My plants desperately need rain. My heart desperately needs the rain of His mercy, grace, love falling and sinking deep into my soul. I drink it in. I am refreshed. There are tiny buds in my life.

Gardener of my soul, thank you for the delicate care You tend our lives with.~Jules