The Gift Of Spring

The Gift of Spring

Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father.

On a whim, I grabbed a bag of hyacinth bulbs one fall while running errands at a big-box store, a fun idea swirling through my thoughts. Upon arriving home, I tossed the bag into the crisper of the garage refrigerator and promptly forgot about it.

I next thought of the bulbs on a chilly day in late December, and so I stopped to buy a small multitude of tiny vases at the dollar store. I returned home and gently placed each bulb on the top of a vase, allowing the bottom of the bulb to just barely kiss the water, lining them all up on the top of my buffet sideboard like small soldiers, before ignoring them again.

It wasn’t long before the bulbs started shooting up the first hint of green, followed by narrow leaves. After several weeks, a tiny flower stalk appeared. I periodically topped off the water and rotated my vases, making sure the greenery was sprouting uniformly and that the flower stalks were straight.

I’m a girl with farming written into the very essence of her DNA, and it’s in the depths of dreary winter that my soul cries out for the unfurling of new life. Even one flowering bulb brings me a joy that sinks deep—a God-given reminder that new life is right around the corner—in the physical world and also in my heart.

With my tiny bulb-soldiers showing the first hints of blossoming into intensely fragrant blooms in vibrant hues of purple, I deployed them into the lives around me, delivering them to women who, like me, needed a physical reminder that God is bigger, that winter ends, that there is new life at the end of hard seasons.

We all have giftings bestowed on us by God, things we are good at, whether baking homemade bread, wielding power tools, setting up budgets and spreadsheets, sharing insights into nutrition and exercise, or any other number of skills and talents. Let’s use these things to encourage the women around us and bring them joy.

— Julie

— Today’s Act of Friendship —

Use a skill or talent you have (e.g., gardening, baking, painting, doing home repairs, giving leadership advice) to brighten someone’s day.