Opening My Eyes To See

I have a hunch that all of us are sick and tired of hearing about the lousy weather this past year has given to us. The long, cold winter has certainly been the top of the news more nights than not. This week has been more of the cool and gloomy weather. I have been looking all over for the signs of spring.

Last Saturday I made my second springtime trip to Whitewater State Park, that gem of a natural resource near Elba and St. Charles, east of here. I have made that my state park homestead for its diversity and beauty. My goal, as it is every year, was to find the signs of spring that will keep me moving forward even when the weather won't cooperate.

As usual when I find myself in nature (or God's house, as I have often called it) I had to relearn some lessons.

Also, as usual, I started looking for the BIG picture... the overall scenes, the leaves, etc. Sure, there were signs, but they weren't very obvious. In fact, calling them subtle might be an overstatement.





Some green, but not as much as I expected after two weeks. Disappointment. Will spring ever get here? Will we ever see nice temps and good opportunities to be out?

But as I walked on, I began to realize that there was more going on than I first realized.

I was past the half-way point when I began to notice the miracles that were happening. Spring was exploding, though the explosions were small. But small does not mean insignificant. This is the way it starts every year. One flower at a time.

[Sidenote: Since these pictures were taken we have had rain and more rain. 

The comment was made that these flowers have probably been beaten down 

over the 5 days in a row of bad weather. 

Maybe I'll get the chance to see this weekend sometime.]

But my biggest surprise was later when I was showing the pictures to my wife and, just for the fun of it, I clicked back to the pictures from two weeks earlier and saw these:

Two weeks prior

Two weeks prior

How quickly we forget. Spring IS coming.