February 18

Adam sent me flowers for Valentine's Day. When they first arrived, the roses were really pretty and pink and full, but the lillies were still tightly closed and... not quite so pretty. I looked at them each morning, afternoon, and evening, and still the lillies remained largely unchanged, and it was... disappointing. But then today... this:

Sometimes we have to wait for a situation --or a flower-- to fully unfold before we can see the true scope of its beauty. (And sometimes those pre-completion iterations are pretty darn ugly.) Patience is hard --really hard for me, in fact, and it always has been-- but so necessary if we want to see the big, beautiful painting that eventually fills the canvas.