Rocky Mountain Lake Park

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you know that Spring is my favorite season. I love watching the world come to life. I loved pruning my Tennessee lilac bushes and making tulip arrangements. I didn’t love the bees (I’m allergic) or the pollen (allergic to that too); but the sunshine, mild temperatures, fragrant plants, and general beauty were worth the energy I spent sneezing.

Springtime in Denver is different. Better, if you ask me. It seems as if every day is sunny and the temperatures never go above 75. The blooms aren’t as prolific here as they are in the South because the climate is so much drier in a prairie, but I don’t have any pollen allergies. And there are no mosquitoes. I can sit outside in a park with my laptop and write blogs without a box of tissues. It is glorious.

I am thankful to have a husband who appreciates beauty and nature as much as I do. Each weekend when we go into the mountains and hike, he lets me stop and just gawk at the snow caps and springs and (super-cute fuzzy) mule deer around us. He’d buy me “rocks” every day if he could, and he does manage to keep the vase on my mantle full of freshly cut flowers (now courtesy of Whole Foods instead of our backyard). Those cut flowers are the only Spring blossoms I’ve really seen around here.

Today the vase is full of lilies: a reminder of Easter week and an inspiration for an upcoming baby shower. My sweet niece and goddaughter, Lily, will join the Haley clan at the end of May. She won’t just be a result of the life that comes to earth in the Spring, but the embodiment of that life.

“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Luke 12:27 NKJV).

Jesus is trying to explain why humanity should stop worrying. God is in control of everything. He brings life to the earth in the Spring, and He has brought life to my niece. Notice that after millennia of doing this, He still enlivens the world with great care. God takes the time to adorn His creation. He rains on all those beautiful plants when we forget them (not to say that I ever forgot to water my plants) and raises them up under His sunlight.

I’ve written a letter to Lily, and in it I’ve encouraged her to consider her namesake. Lilies are delicate and beautiful, yes, but they are also hardy and carefree. God wants these things for Lily’s life. God cares for my flower of a niece as He cares for His wild prairie blossoms: meticulously and completely. He will make sure that the irritants she encounters in life are beneficial just as bees and pollen that might irritate her immune system make for a more beautiful Tennessee spring.

But should Lily need to escape the itchy South and practice giving her worries to God, there’s no reason she can’t come to the Denver prairie for a season.