I’m tapping away at my laptop again. Scout is asleep. Behr is supposed to be, but keeps poking his head out the door because, “I can’t close my eyes.”
I wish I could close mine.
I didn’t sleep well last night. I never do when Jonathan works night shift. I sleep lightly with my glasses on his pillow in case I have to jump up and defend the children from intruders. This has never happened. But my worst-case-scenario brain is always prepared for, well, the worst.
It’s 14 days until the time changes and 20 before Spring arrives. My brain automatically starts preparing for the onslaught of thunderstorms and sleepless nights that accompany the change of season. I feel my body tensing up already from the lack of sleep and increased anxiety as a result.
Instead of looking forward to Spring, I’m already battening down the hatches and hunkering down.
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Four days ago Jonathan spotted something bright yellow in the yard. I was shocked. Was that a pansy? In February?!
Jonathan took Behr out to check and, against all odds, that’s exactly what it was. A butter colored pansy popping right out of the frozen dirt, undaunted.
I planted those pansies last Fall. I don’t even like pansies but they were a gift. Our family had eaten out at Cracker Barrel and while Jonathan paid for our meal, I took the kids out on the porch to keep them from begging for toys.
While we waited for Jonathan to join us, we watched a group of landscapers working the mulch beds out front. One burly man was planting flowers in the dirt right next to us. I pointed their yellow petals out to Scout. Before I knew what was happening, the man stood up and offered me a half a tray of unplanted pansies. He didn’t even speak the same language as me, but the gesture was clear. He wanted me to take them home. “Are you sure?” I asked. He nodded. I obliged.
And now, it looks like speck of sunlight got snagged in the dead grass in our front yard; a golden thumbprint from our planet’s nearest star.
Seeing that flower is like God tapping on the door of my mental doomsday bunker and saying, “I know you’re scared but, did you forget about the flowers?”
Why, yes. Yes, I did.
I forgot living Shadowlands means the impossibly hard mingles with the undeniably good. I forgot that sometimes the good is very good because we know exactly what very bad feels like and the contrast makes us all the more grateful.
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Both my children are now asleep. Jonathan will sneak in the house at 6:30am and fall asleep next to me right when Scout wakes up. I’ll most likely start the day exhausted and in need of the Lord’s grace.
Every day moves us closer to Spring and all the rough transition that comes with it.
And every day, more flowers will come.