Waiting for Spring

March 15, 2018 by JoAnna 10 Comments

(From my March Newsletter.)

Sitting here in the middle of March with cold wind whipping at the new buds, I wonder if my young hydrangea will freeze tonight? Do I need to cover it? I’m longing to get outside again like I did in the teaser spring a couple weeks ago. March on the Carolina Coast can be delightfully balmy. We can even have a freakishly warm day in January. But now, it’s still very much winter.

One of the good things about getting older is that we know spring will come. The storms of winter can make us stronger and wiser if we’re willing to learn new skills.

Sometimes we cover the tender plants, and sometimes we wait and see. Letting nature take its course can be scary. But waiting has sometimes worked better for me than trying to fix things my way.

I’m still learning to let go and let God work with my grown-up kids. Trying to “help” my kids too much was not always what they needed. At times, helping them was the right thing to do. But there were other times when standing back would help them figure things out for themselves. Now that they are grown, I need to step back more and let God work. It’s not easy. I’m still going to help them. But I’ll remember that even in past winters when early hydrangea leaves froze, the bush didn’t die. It grew new leaves in the spring. Even that summer when my well-meaning husband ran the little hydrangea over with the lawn mower, it came back. It must have deep roots.

I’m not going to let my adult children freeze, starve, or get run over by a lawn mower if I can help it. I’d face a lawn mower for them today, if I thought it would help. But I also know they can and have faced their own lawn mowers, and unlike a hydrangea, they can get out of the way. But I digress.

The point is, sometimes my way of trying to fix things doesn’t help.

Trying to find a husband my way didn’t work in the long run, though it did teach me important lessons about loving myself and setting boundaries. When I gave my soulmate search to God, God seemed to take an awfully long time, but it was only five years. During that time, I got to practice patience. And God did an awesome job!

So, I need to remind myself of how God comes through for us, even if it takes longer then we think it should. I have to remember that God has a plan for my grown-up children.

Is there something you need to turn over to the care of God?
God’s got it covered.
Spring is on the way.

Photo by my daughter, Ayla