For Wilshire Baptist Church
It’s an ugly season at our house — in our back yard, to be more specific. Looking out the back windows, everything is a dull shade of brownish-gray. The flowerbeds are full of the dry remains of last year’s blooms, while weeds and wild grasses that are immune to the cold are taking over. Even the pea gravel path that divides the main beds is beginning to disappear from view under a layer of creeping, mossy weeds.
The glass birdbath painted with colorful dragonflies that provided refreshment for birds, squirrels and rabbits no longer provides sparkle, having shattered into pieces with the recent freeze. The leaves on the evergreen laurels are edged with brown freezer burn. The large buds on the camellia that should have been bursting bright red by now hang closed and stillborn. Up above, a few pecan branches hold tightly to tufts of dried leaves, revealing the death that came during last year’s freeze but was hidden from view through the summer and fall. It’ll take a hard wind or a man on a tall ladder to bring them down. That won’t be me anytime soon.
We spent a recent mild morning between freezes cutting out the crackly brown remains of the cannas, Mexican petunias, morning glories and sages to make room for fresh growth that we know in faith will begin to show in a few months. I had hoped to do more before a planned shoulder surgery sidelined me for maybe a dozen weeks. Sadly, my pre-surgical checklist for yard and house chores didn’t include provisions for Valentine’s Day.
But amid all the mid-February doom and gloom, there’s some good news to report: The daffodils have begun showing their green stalks. And one near the front walk has bloomed bright and bold, its fat yellow face bobbing in the chilly breeze as if to say, “Better days are coming.”
I have no reason to doubt that; it happens that way every year. But there are always some days when I look out and it looks like nothing will ever be pretty again, and that’s when I’m most anxious to get out and do my part to bring in spring. That urge will be strong soon as the dormant weeds in the brown grass — the dandelions especially — get tickled back to life by the late winter rains and threaten to take over the yard.
But for now, I’ll sit back and let the daffodils have their day. They remind us that nature is still at work, and while the time to jump in and help will come, God is still in control. God’s hands are still on the wheel that keeps the world turning and the seasons changing.