Tulip surprise and other delights

Once in a while, just to keep your spirits up, God gives you a surprise.

About five years ago, maybe more, when I could still get around the yard, I put in some tulip bulbs. I'm not much of a gardener, but the sight of the tulips pushing their way into the sun every spring was so pleasing that I usually went to the trouble of purchasing bulbs and planting them in the fall. After I quit planting the bulbs, tulip leaves but no flowers came up, making our front yard look kind of funny.

But this spring as I was getting the paper one morning, I noticed that a lone tulip had sprouted and last week, quite surprisingly, it burst into bloom.

The same goes for the bluebells. Several years ago, I bought some at the spring wildflower sale at Lincoln Memorial Gardens and planted them in the front yard. To my delight, they have flourished, certainly not due to any care from me. I secretly coveted the neighbor's bluebells for years and now I have three healthy flowers right outside my door.

There is nothing compared to unpredictability of nature to give one hope. The dirty brown goldfinches on our feeder are transformed into lovely canary-yellow birds in the spring. These birds do nothing to earn their brilliant color.  If God is so gracious to these insignificant warblers, what is in store for me?