It is Tuesday, post-Easter, in the Easter week.
As I look outside on this awesome spring day, things are rising! The grass is green, the hills glow with life, and to my children’s chagrin, I celebrated the arrival of dandelions this past weekend!
To be honest, I pluck them out, but God has purposes for dandelions… and I need to listen to that. They brought much cheer to me, their sunny little faces sprouting with the warmth.
I started thinking today about hidden things… about the lessons of Easter time and spring. Some years ago I drew about being hidden, and I found it again today:
We hid things on Good Friday for the children. Treats, activities, chocolate of course. 🙂 And some fun balls I had made with balloons. I was grateful for my daughter who hid them (and my other daughter for providing children to find them!) while I busied myself with dinner preparations… The hiding is fun, but the finding is delightful! Precious grand-kids having a blast, creating memories.
Yesterday I did a different kind of hiding… tiny seeds: lettuce, radish, kale… all now hidden in the garden bed my friend and I prepared for them…. and we covered them. And now we wait, for the miracle!
Good things come from hidden places. And I think about what I hide in my heart… my hopes and my dreams, my longings.
Sometimes it takes brokenness… and periods in dark places before we can see the light. The seed is full of hope and life, and to me is a beautiful picture of how God prepares our hearts for things to come. Sometimes the hard places are the places of greatest growth.
There is also beautiful places in the Psalms about God himself being our hiding place. Psalm 32:7, a beautiful prayer says: “You are my hiding place, You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance.”
And Psalm 27:5 says this: “For He will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock.”
At times our world doesn’t feel very safe. I love the images that we can run to God and hide… and with God there is safety, security and rest.
I’m learning that to be there, I need to rest and trust… spending time with the Creator, in creation. As I learn from the seeds, now hidden… and delight in dandelions, I can experience God’s great love… love for each of us as we trust in our loving God to be our shelter and hiding place.
