Hebrews 11:3 “It is by faith that we understand that the universe was created by God's word, so that what can be seen was made out of what cannot be seen.”

            Each spring I wait for these snowdrops to show up.  What I see for only a short time goes unseen for most of the year.  This is a time when we may find ourselves missing what we are used to seeing.  Our family, our friends, our favorite restaurants, our places of business, and even our churches might go unseen for a time.  But God's creative hand is still at work.

--What new thing waits in us?

--What unseen thing has been waiting to be revealed, revealed in the silence and in the empty spaces?

--What might we notice as we walk through our neighborhoods with the air almost dense with solitude?

Without snow to shovel, and with plenty of electricity and hot water, our bodies move awkwardly through space and time. Anxiety, fear, and even anger move like electrical currents, zipping and zapping, this way and that through our brains. Many of us feel like we are on the edge of something...but what?

Our grandson was born early and he was a fragile little peanut. On one of his first outings, my sister was with us. I was walking, carrying him down a flight of stairs and that walk was one of the longest walks in my life. Each step took effort and seemed to bring me no closer to the end. The floored loomed before me, daring me not to trip. My arms felt like they belonged to someone else as they cradled the baby.

Once I stepped off the last step, I paused and let go of my breath, I was unaware that I had stopped breathing. My sister looked at me and said; "I was so worried you would drop him." She has walked each step with the same caution and worry even though her arms were empty.

Now we have six children between us, most very close in age, and I can promise you that we never took a walk like that with them. We swung them, we held them with one arm, and we even let 4-year-old arms hold new born babies, they may have been sitting but those arms were only 4-years-old!

There was something new in that walk, something we did not anticipate, being a grandparent was not the same as being a parent. The value of time and life have a different meaning. It all goes so quickly.

The snowdrops usually come before I am ready. I have not raked the pine needles away and to be honest the weather may be too chilly for me to spend much time admiring them. When all is said and done, they will have gone before I know it. All the waiting, including the waiting I didn't even know I was doing, is worth the first sighting of them. It is all worth the skip in my heart and the promise of more to come; the unseen is brewing just below the surface.

       As we wait for life to get back to normal, consider this a time of tilling the familiar soil for new growth.  A time to prepare our hearts and minds for what is unseen.

       Alana Levandoski sings: "Behold I make all things new--God unseen is taking form--Let there be light--Let there be light."