After the snow melts in Pennsylvania, I return to the woods. The salamanders migrate to the secret vernal pond, and my daughter and I hike to observe them in this ancient ritual. Soon, we’ll note the cotton-candy puffs of egg clusters filling the pond. With the change of season, I feel my own soul coming alive again. The crocus, daffodil, and cherry blossom cheer me on.
I venture out, unsure of what the new season could mean. I do know this: I hunt for shed antlers; I dream of hibernating turtles emerging from under fallen logs, and I scour places where I might find the lady slipper orchids next month.
Spring!
I feel the creativity start again, finally, after months of hibernation, and I consider a new project: pinecone flowers. I saw a photo online of people who find pinecones, cut them in half to reveal what looks like a perfect flower, and paint them vibrant colors. You can make wreaths or bouquets or just bowls of painted pinecone flowers. You know me: I love acorn painting, so why not pinecones?
The idea feels gorgeous in my head, but when I return from the woods with an armful of pinecones, cutting them in half isn’t easy. The revealed flower looks jagged and uneven. I’m impatient with the paint. I’m covered in sap. In the end, my craft attempt fails miserably, and the sap on my palms feels like punishment for even trying.
It’s a silly thing, but I felt defeated and sad. What goals I had! What vision!
I can’t get the artistic disaster out of my mind.
In the early evening, I’m finishing dinner with my dear friend, and we roam the campus before our book club. The topic for the evening had to do with seeing God at work around us. I felt discouraged and far from God, and I tell my friend all about it. And I keep thinking about creativity and how I had truly wanted those silly pinecone flowers to work! As we’re walking down the sidewalk, I’m gazing down to my right where I see the strangest thing.
I lean down. I peer. I lift the thing into my palm.
“Why is there a wooden rose here?” I say to my friend.
Brown wooden roses litter the ground. The whole area around us suddenly feels covered in these strange, perfect flowers.
I look up, confused. I’ve never seen anything like this flower I’m holding in my hand. The wooden flowers are perfect little flower pinecones—the kind I attempted to create on my own—now delivered in perfect timing and in perfect form from the huge tree above us.
I’m marveling again. My friend looks up the tree’s name: It’s a Dordar Cedar, best know for the cones that look like wooden flowers. The origins of its name, devadāru, means “wood of the gods.”
I felt stunned. I wanted to create the perfect pinecone flower, and here God was, delivering into my hand what He had made. I thought of my armful of slender cones from the Easter Pine and the fat squatty cones from the Red Pine. I didn’t know anything about a Cedar Rose cone. I thought of how I tried to create something that failed, and God made up the difference. He perfected what I envisioned and what I attempted.
I gathered some flower cones to give to the women in my book club.
Later, I tell the women about the Cedar trees, and how I had been so sad about my craft attempt and how whimsical it felt to have God orchestrate a delivery of the Real Thing into my hands. One woman explains the 50 years it takes to bear the fruit of that rose cone. She taught us about the tap root, the strength of the tree, and what it means to let our roots go down into the Lord. In my 50th year, I needed that image. After all this time, God still has new fruit for us to bear. And He is a God who delights us, even in ridiculous ways.
We offer our vision, our attempts (even a craft project of all things) and He perfects it. He knows what we’re after.
I thought of Psalm 18 and how God’s way is perfect. I, and my efforts in any form, am not.
