Frost to Flood

a devotional

Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash

don’t tell a soul, but:
I caught a glimpse of fingers
reaching up from the soggy leaf-litter;

the young daffodils are testing the air, 
like we used to do as children:

lick a finger,
stick it in the air
see which way the wind is blowing;

I wonder:
which direction will spring come from
when she finally arrives?

(holding her skirts up over the puddles, 
one hand on her hat
to chide the wind
for stealing it?) 

It is truly—deeply, seriously, incredibly—soggy, outside. Every inch of crisp ice and frost from last week’s cold snap has vanished, and instead we’re left with the Maritime Northwest Winter Special: forty-five degrees and days of pouring rain. 

In response, the ground has soaked up all the wet—along with the melted ice—and is responding with a suspiciously muddy softness. The puddles are finding one another, creating vast committees on the driveway, the road, the pavement. The moss has a self-satisfied look on its face, having survived the killing frost and lived to grow another day in all of the places we wish it wouldn’t.

In other words: it’s very, very soggy. 

And it’s difficult not to let our spirits get soggy, too, with all of this rain. This is the stretch of January I find most challenging to navigate: when going outside means spending about five whole minutes getting ready, and coming back in means drying off the dog and finding a place to hang up the coat and dealing with muddy boots and a dripping umbrella. 

Moan, moan, moan. Gripe, gripe, gripe. (Good grief.) 

But that said, it’s impossible not to notice that the tiny buds—the green flames of approaching Candlemas—are already appearing on the barest branches, and the early wild daffodils are just starting to peek their leaves up in their usual haunts. And while these little green prophets are a bit of a false hope, and there is a long, wet, gray road yet to travel until spring-for-real, the signs and signals of a turning earth are a warming wind to this winter-weary heart. 

All of this rain and all of this wet are sinking deep, deep into an earth that will soon support the roots of my garden plants, my herbs and vegetables and flowers and fruit.

This, too, is provision.

For a day is coming (summer-hot and stifling) when I’ll pray for the rain I’m cursing, today. It is the way of things. 

Praise God—patient and kind—from Whom all blessings flow. Including the flood.

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