. . . the dandelions have gone to seed . . .

My daughter and I have been taking walks and playing outside a lot lately. It helps break up the monotony of being sheltered-in-place. As you can imagine, being cooped up with your parents as an only child, as a 5-year-old child, is not that much fun. In fact, we're all a little whiny and our tempers flare from time to time. Today was such a day. My daughter was digging through her Valentine's Day candy looking for the Sour Patch Kids and couldn't find them. Admittedly, I ate them several weeks ago so they weren't there. Bad mom. She's smart, they are delicious!

My guilt, added to her whining, equaled a walk to the 7-11 for a bag of candy. I just didn't want to deal with the crabbiness! Mine or hers.

As we walked, she kept stalling to pluck dandelions that had gone to seed. You remember being a kid - blowing those white fluffs off the stalk is like walking into a fairyland. But the constant stopping irritated me. All I wanted to do was get to the store and the candy, and get home.

But in mid-irritation, I stopped myself and looked up the road to see that the dandelions had gone to seed. Last Friday they had been mostly yellow, adding pops of color to the streetscape. Today they were the eyesore of long, dismal, wiry, empty stalks. I stopped in my tracks; I was astonished. JUST last Friday they were alive and beautiful!

Change happens so quickly.

One week we worshiped together in the sanctuary, the next we were joined through the miracle of bandwidth.

I think if we consciously slowed down and took notice of the world around us, we would see these changes happening more clearly. Springs fade to summer, summer melts to fall, and fall slides into winter. 365 days is not a lot of time if you think about it. All of life happens so quickly - and if we don't slow down, we fail to miss it... worse, we fail to appreciate it. 

Change happens so quickly.

In this time of change, it is important to be aware of our emotions. Sometimes we fail to recognize them; or blow them off. We think we need to be stoic and deny that we might be struggling. God has created us to have a stratum of emotions and feelings. We are meant to experience the fullness of life and these emotions help us do that. While you are navigating the change, be aware of what's happening within you.

Slow down, acknowledge the difficulty. See the dandelions before they go to seed, and absorb the beauty of God's creation.