They Don’t Read Calendars—They Read Light

At 7:46 this morning, Pacific Time, spring officially arrived - the moment when daylight and darkness stand in quiet balance, each holding about twelve hours.

Though here in California, it almost feels like spring has been gently unfolding for several weeks already.

The Almond Tree began flowering in late January or early February. The freak one-day inch of snow didn't bother the flowers one bit. 

The daffodils already made their appearance back in mid-January, bright and cheerful as ever. 

The pot of shamrocks grows and blossoms year-round on our patio. 

 Twice a year, I trim them, and within two weeks, they start growing and blooming again. We don’t move the pot because that’s where they thrive, and we want to keep it that way for them.

The first California poppy, this week. 

Orange blossoms a month ago...

My white irises followed in late February, as they faithfully do each year. 

Not long after, the purple ones began to bloom, and now I'm watching for the yellow Irises —likely to open by the end of March or the start of April.

Ecclesiastes 3:1: "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven."

After nearly eighteen years in this home, I've come to know the rhythm of my garden well. Each bloom arrives right on time, as if following a quiet, unwritten schedule.

Source: Pinterest 
North Table Mountain near Oroville, CA

And while many in colder regions have been counting down the days to spring, waiting for the snow to melt and the earth to soften, it's not just people who are watching the season change.

Creation itself has been waiting

 and watching.

As the days lengthen and cross that delicate threshold, something remarkable begins to happen. Light signals, received deep within the brain, trigger changes that tell animals and plants alike: winter is ending. It's time.

Birds begin to sing earlier and with greater urgency. Migration patterns shift. Frogs call out from wetlands. Turtles stir and move toward nesting grounds. Bees return to their work, pollinating and sustaining life. Across fields, forests, and neighborhoods, a quiet awakening unfolds.

Even the smallest and most hidden creatures are responding.🐌

🐦The robin in the tree doesn't need a calendar to know when to prepare her nest. 

None of them knows the date. They simply read the Light.

And today, the Light says: go.

Wow, isn't our Creator God something? It's hard not to pause and reflect on that. This isn't random. 

Scripture tells us that God set the rhythms of the world in motion, that the sun and moon mark the seasons, and that there is a time for everything under heaven. There is a faithfulness in creation that quietly points back to Him, a steady, unchanging order that continues year after year after year.  Read Psalm 104:5-31

That is comforting to me. 

And just as creation responds to physical Light, we are called to respond to the Light of Jesus. 

Jesus said, "I am the light of the world." And when His Light reaches us, when it begins to grow and take hold, something in us is meant to awaken as well. Just like the plants, the flowers, the animals. 

Perhaps that's the gentle invitation of this season.

To notice. To slow down long enough to see what is already happening all around us. To recognize the ways God is at work - not just in the grand and visible, but in the quiet and unseen.

And maybe even to ask ourselves:

Am I paying attention to the Light?

So as the flowers bloom, the bees return, and the birds fill the morning with song…

May we not miss our moment to awaken.

Spring has come.

And the Light is calling.

Happy First Day of Spring to everyone! 

Until Next Time,

Debby