Spring has sprung.

Humans are shedding the weight of winter clothing while trees are making their own transformation, trading bare, skeletal branches for canopies full of leaves and color. It is easy to know the seasons are changing without actually noticing the change. Sometimes we are in such a hurry that we don't stop to smell the roses, to see the beauty around us, to receive the gift of change as something worth marveling at, as evidence of a God who is doing something, even in what we tend to call the "little things."

But there is nothing little about a tree that was once nothing but grey and brown branches becoming fully bloomed with lush green leaves and bursts of color. There is nothing small about grass that looked dead under the weight of winter snow becoming a full, green pasture — alive again, ready to grow. It is a beautiful reminder that everything changes. That the absence of something good is not the end of the story. That sometimes all that is needed is time.

This morning, after the familiar frenzy of the school drop-off run, I pulled into my driveway and looked up. Right in front of my house was the most beautiful cluster of flowers I had ever seen, a bright, full burst of magenta pink blooms, like a garden had quietly decided to show up and show out while I wasn't paying attention. I sat in my car and just stared.

This did not grow in the thirty minutes I was gone.

Which meant it had been there. All along. Blooming, brilliant, unapologetically present, and I had missed it. Not because it was hiding. Because I was moving too fast to look.

How much beauty is around us that we are failing to see? What change has come into your life this season that you haven't paused long enough to consider? What has God been growing right in front of you while you were rushing past your own driveway?

God invites us to live in awe of Him and His creation. But awe requires stillness. It requires the willingness to sit in the car for an extra moment and actually look at what surrounds you. I often talk about different types of rest, and I've come to believe this is one of them: inspired rest. The kind that happens when you allow yourself to draw beauty and wonder from the world God placed you in.

Today, my little pink bush reminded me to look up.

I hope you find something beautiful that does the same for you.