For we walk by faith, not by sight.

2 Corinthians 5:7

Every year after winter, when all the leaves are coming back on the trees, I start worrying about this dogwood tree in our front yard. Dry as a bone, ashy, no new leaf buds to be found, you could snap a branch in half and it’s not even green inside…everything else is green and beautiful and flourishing, but this little tree looks dead as a doornail. And every single year, I think to myself “welp, the little guy may have actually kicked the bucket this time.”

It takes an extra month or two before it starts getting leaves…but when it does? Flowers come out on it SO fast. And they’re beautiful. The whole tree is covered in them. (For reference—I took this picture of just a small area of maybe 10 inches and it’s PACKED.)

It doesn’t matter what things LOOK like to us. Things can look real bad sometimes. This tree looks dead to me every year…but God sees the life within it. He sees what it’s GOING to be…and that when it does spring forth life, that beauty will be abundant.

Reminder to myself (and anyone else who needs it) to walk by faith and not by sight—because our God isn’t confined to the realm of what we see.

“Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls— Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer’s feet, And He will make me walk on my high hills.”

Habakkuk 3:17-19