Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him. (Psalm 62:8)
“I saw a robin!” My mother’s voice on the phone had the singsong quality of smug victory. She might as well have added, “Na-na-na-na-na!” She likes to win this game.
Mom and I have an annual competition to see who can spot the year’s first robin. It started the year I left home, and it’s been going on for more than two decades. Here in Connecticut, the first robin is a big deal. It means that the winter will, indeed, end, even when we’re convinced it’s going to go on forever. Mom and I are not winter lovers by any stretch of the imagination. For both of us, it’s always been a long, gray crawl from Christmas to Easter. So the first robin is an important signpost, and even more so this year.
My grandmother has been ill for months, and my mother’s older sister died shortly after Christmas. Our lives have been touched by melancholy, and the road ahead looks bumpy and gray as mortality looms large in our lives. To make matters worse, it’s also been the coldest winter in a decade. It’s hard even to imagine Easter. Then Mom’s call came. I couldn’t remember the last time she sounded so excited.
This year’s sighting was the earliest yet. Three days later, I saw a dozen robins gathered together in some undergrowth by the road. A dozen! It was nine degrees out. Mom may have had the victory, but we both won this year.
God’s lesser creatures know what we advanced folk sometimes forget: Easter and spring always come. Sometimes, we just have to wait awhile.
Lord Jesus, let me never forget that you are risen and present in all circumstances and in all seasons.
