Helicopters!

One of my favorite things about springtime is when the maple trees drop their seeds. The seeds are formed inside samaras (a word I did not previously know!), which have feathery wings on them that make them float to the ground, spinning deliriously, like helicopter blades. I remember as a child, grabbing handfuls of them from the ground and flinging them into the air above my head, looking up to watch them flutter, and laughing with the sheer joy of it.

This afternoon, on the drive from my office to pick up my son at school, I stopped behind a stoplight at the bottom of the exit ramp from the Interstate. A breeze blew past, and a shower of maple samaras fluttered in a golden cloud around my car. What a delight! Just a few blocks later, I drove through another shower of fluttery, helicoptery delight. And just as when I was a girl, I laughed out loud in joy and wonder.

These - these little beautiful encounters - these are love notes from God. As I said on my Friday Five post about joy, we have to keep our eyes open to see them, and to know them for what they are. God is constantly sending us little love notes, if we just look for them. So this afternoon - among all the craziness and busy-ness and complexity and conflict in my life - I stopped for a moment to feel the joy and wonder and delight at God's love for me, and I was incredibly, deeply grateful.

I hope that today, you spot one of God's love notes to you. I know it's there, waiting for you. Because God loves you extravagantly, deliriously, awesomely.