Hidden Strawberries

  At the end of a long, cold New England winter, the snow finally melted at the end of March. In the late autumn, the strawberry plants had been covered with a large layer of pine needles and leaves, to protect them during the winter and snow. Carefully, the leaves and pine needles were raked away, exposing the green and thriving strawberry plants, which had been growing well in the dark, under the mulch. They had not seemed to mind the darkness and perhaps thrived under the heat of decaying mulch, so that I worried that exposure to the crisp air and sun might hurt them.
  There are times and seasons, in which our lives appear as the mulch, dry, brown, shiveled and dead, the work of God not being apparent to the human eye. Just like the strawberries under the mulch the life and vitality of God's hand is revealed, as the leaves are raked away!