Our Family Is Not a Tree

A few years ago, our oldest daughter had an assignment in her high school art class to take a picture of something in nature to sketch. She was enjoying her art class; I think in part because it offered an opportunity for her to use a different part of her brain. English was not her first language, and a whole day of classes in a second (or third) language could be wearying. There weren’t many guidelines for this particular assignment, just completing a colored pencil sketch from a personal photo of nature. After walking around the neighborhood with her camera and struggling to find a big, beautiful view, she came back in and asked for help.
She and I went out into the backyard, and I suggested that she look for something small. It was March, and the brown damp of a lingering Michigan winter was just starting to give way to spring. From the deck, everything still looked dull and dreary. As we walked slowly around the yard, we began to notice hints of beauty. We spied bright red berries growing on our evergreen bushes, the tiny parallel veins on a leaf, and the wild and weedy blue flowers growing up in the lawn amidst the still-brown grass. She took pictures of them all but ended up sketching the weedy flower in the lawn.
This picture hangs in our kitchen now, and every spring, these same flowers pop up all over our lawn. Every time I see either one, I smile and remember those words. “Look for something small.”
Whether or not I can see God working in big, amazing, beautiful ways, I can always see him when I look for something small. Often on our foster care journey, we have not felt abundantly prepared for whatever situation we encountered, but rather, as needs came up, we were able to see a way for them to be filled. Time after time, it was clear that we were not the saviors in this story. We were not highly qualified or overprepared, but we were willing. Willing to offer what we did have, and willing to look for help when needs were beyond what we could fill.
I think God has used this. If our whole story looked like a glorious summer garden landscape, full of blooming flowers and vines laden with fruit, we would be tempted to praise our own gardening skills. Rather, in a very ordinary backyard, we can see signs of new life appearing. In a very ordinary life, we have seen God work wonders. When I slow my own busy movement and remind myself to notice all the good things, it’s hard to look at bright flowers bursting up through brown grass without remembering the words from Revelation, “I am making everything new!”