From Where Does My Help Come? {Part 2}

Part 2 -- Read Part 1 here.

Just days later, I decided to take a walk to clear my mind of worry and fear.  I wanted to hand this all over to the Lord.  

I began to notice how bare the trees were and how it still seemed incredibly gloomy.  I would never have guessed it was Spring, except for the date on the calendar.  April 6th.

As I walked and prayed tears flooded my eyes as I prayed for Adam. Then, a funny thing happened: my prayers started to turn toward our neighborhood, and then to our church, our community, and then to my state and then to our entire nation… 

I continued to pray but that a thought floated through my head and seemed to sink on to my shoulders.  I became distracted by this odd, perplexing idea that nagged at me.

Where was Spring? Like the literal, physical, season of Spring? Where was it? If I didn’t know any better I would think we were in the middle of winter. Because Winter was all I could see. Winter was all around us.

The landscape was incredibly bleak but just then I recognized a deeper truth. I saw that this winter reflected part of my heart — the part that secretly feared the worst for my son.  The part of me that lacked faith.  The part of me that wondered why this?  Why does he keep suffering? 

I longed for rejoicing. I longed to see God do a work in him, in our family, and in our world.  When would this winter end?

Suddenly that thought morphed into another.  As if a still small voice whispered. Look up.  And then I did just that.  I looked up.  And there it was.  A tiny birds nest perched in a bare tree.  A small sign of things to come.

You see.  It might not have looked like Spring.  It might look like Spring was never going to come. 

It was easy to see the death, the rot, lack of life all around me.  But the birds were nesting, the time was near. Life would soon burst forth from the ground. 

It was time and yet it was almost time. 

It was now and it was almost now. 

It was coming and the day was here. 

And that is where I stood that day.  Looking up at the sky standing in a paradox on a sidewalk next to a tree.

Tears streaming down my cheeks I knew I had just heard from the Lord.

I stood in the almost and in the done.  Because the Lord was making a new thing and yet He had already done it.  I saw at that moment, with my own eyes,  that God is at work all around us but sometimes our perspective needs to change in order for us to see it. 

Sometimes things are hidden from our view until just the right moment. 

And sometimes we just need to tilt our head and look to Him.

Maybe you need to hear this, too, today.  Just look up.

A Song of Ascents. I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From where shall my help come?

Psalm 121:1