Growing Season

     To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. 
     —Ecclesiastes 3:1

I had a few extra minutes in downtown Salt Lake City last Saturday evening, so I decided to swing though temple square. I was really hoping to see some lovely spring flowers. I’m not sure why I expected there might be flowers at the beginning of March, but after a dreary and cold winter, it seemed like it’d been long enough. Surely there were flowers by now.

There weren’t.

Instead, the flower beds were simple mounds of dirt, with just a few patches of ground-cover greenery. And snow. That’s right, some of the flowerbeds still had patches of snow on them. I was rather disappointed. But then I saw this:

See it? Those two orange-ish somethings, front and slightly right of center? There in this mound of almost barren dirt, still somewhat covered by snow, there is a tiny sprout of something. I don’t know what it will be, but clearly something is coming, something is growing, something is happening beneath the surface.

I think we all go through growing seasons. Times when it looks like nothing is happening. Days that seem like our patch of ground is never-endingly covered in dirty snow. It’s hard to remember, especially if we just look at the surface, that a lot is going on underneath. Seeds planted months ago (and even longer), seeds that have been have nourished and protected and watched over, are sprouting and growing, and small yet sturdy tendrils are making their way toward the surface. In time, they will bloom. But not yet. 

Now is the time to trust the Gardner.