The In-Between

I am so thankful for the beauty of this morning. A light rain falling from a hazy sky. I notice new blooms in the garden that weren’t there yesterday. I grab the Canon and head out into the drizzle, magic awaits me in every color and sound. It’s coming to the end of our Painted Bunting season. This weekend we will turn the clocks ahead and before you know it this time will be a blur of a turned calendar page. Just about when I start to feel bad about saying farewell until fall to the beautiful birds that winter here, I am distracted by the “beep-beep” of the Great crested flycatcher. Now there’s one I haven't heard for a while! Then my husband draws my attention to a huge momma bunny sitting in front of the little shed, while a small young bunny hops nearby. And so I dub this the “in between” time. Some things are ending, and something elseis not yet fully there. My life is mirrored in this garden, this wonderland of beauty that I cannot entirely understand. A moment of sadness in a goodbye suddenly overshadowed by the miracle of something new on the horizon. A fresh batch of bunnies under our shed and nests being constructed in the birdie-condo. I quoted a verse to my daughter the other day..”*From Glory to Glory…” ancient wisdom but always relevant. Things are constantly changing and if we flow with it, we are changed from one phase of being to another, hopefully wiser, glory. 

"Consider the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these." 

I find myself in the “in-between”. The place of where do I go from here, and whats next? I seemed to have detoured a bit a while back. Lost my bread crumbs on the path. Some necessary detours taken in finding a lost girl who was keeping secrets of terrors from long ago.

I found her there where the bread crumbs faded. Still hiding in the pines, the softness of the white sand and pine needles, the aroma of childhood. She was waiting to be found, to purge her story, to move on to her next glory. 

But what happens to the sack of secrets once they are told? When it is time for the season in the garden of reflection to move on to the next? The birds do not carry a sack from one season to the next. When it is time to fly, they fly! No time for being stuck in the in-between, for them there is no in-between, just on to the next! And I am reminded to:

"Consider the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap; and how much more valuable you are than the birds"

Think of the birds, of the lilies, of a Higher Power greater than all of this. Greater than our losses, our disappointments, greater than our past.

More magnificent than the beauty of this earth, is the One who tells the Painted Buntings when to fly, and the Lilies when to open, who finds lost girls in the woods and sets them back on their path. On to finding their way to their next glory.

And all at once, the haze burns off and the garden flowers are illuminated by tiny droplets reflecting the sun. A hummingbird comes to have a sip just a few feet from where I sit, telling me that it is time to fill the little red feeder. Gratefulness fills me for all of the beauty of this life, the creatures of this small garden and the One who leaves the breadcrumbs so we can find our way home.

*II Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.