It’s just about time for a field trip if you are a school-aged child. That’s because the end of the school year is in sight. It’s also time to get out if you’re all grown up, for our weather has improved greatly in the past couple of weeks, gifting us with sun breaks and moderate temperatures.
With that in mind, it is fitting that we take a field trip of our own. Let’s go now, in between the soft showers of rain that annoy families watching their children play soccer and baseball, but delight the seedlings in our gardens.
Grab some comfortable shoes and a hooded jacket, just in case. Now walk toward a grove of trees, the kind that bathe our Pacific Northwest home in grandeur. Step carefully among the young ferns unfurling their arms like babies do in the morning. And do not worry if you dislodge a mother bird from her nest. We will not be long and she will return, for her commitment to hatch her brood goes well beyond a momentary scare.
Take in the damp air smelling faintly of evergreen and feast your eyes on the trees. Just look at all the shades of green! There is new growth everywhere, so rejoice! When your heart fills with gratitude and joy falls from your lips, you bring love into your world.
This is one of the ways I know God is with you and me. He brings change to our world and tucks gentle messages inside those changes. We must step away from our busyness and take a moment to be quiet and look. We must attune our hearts to those potential messages, those great life lessons, and apply them once we return from our momentary excursions.
I know that God can speak with a roar. Just turn to the Old Testament in your Bible and read about the plagues God sent upon the Egyptians. The brutal immensity of His message leaves no doubt He was intervening in the lives of man.
But we also learn from the Bible that God is gentle. And His personal message to us this week can be seen in all places, in the trees as they wake up. He produces growth in both the oldest and youngest of trees — as well as in us.
His message brings great relief to most of us who fear we are too insignificant to demand His notice. It also comes to those of us who wonder if He is finished with us out of frustration with our fears and our laziness.
Now look up to see all of those trees that are scarred and bent. Some have had their tops knocked out by wind and snow. Some have even been pushed over at some point and not only grow along the ground, but seem to have gained the strength to reach upward once again toward the sky.
It is all about timing, known only to God and produced by God. So let us end our jaunt into the forest’s edge — and into the edge of greater understanding — by uttering a prayer for ourselves today, asking for growth. And energy. And enthusiasm.
