It’s the time of year that God allows a sprinkling here and there of soft green woven “pillows”. I know there’s a name for them. I can’t remember it. I just find them so pretty. I tiptoe around them, aware of what I see as fragility.

We walked carefully over the tangled vines and fallen branches. Toddler, Henry in his little boots smaller than my hand. I let him venture barely three steps away from me then wrapped him in my arms to be sure he didn’t high tail it to the place his curiosity was calling.

I heard the water, the creek too shielded by overgrowth to see and too uncertain for us to go seeking. So, we just circled round and round, he intent on going deeper in and me, scooping him up to walk where it was more safe and clear.

He resisted yielding again and again.

The unknown and interesting was a steady call to his little investigative mind.

As if to say, I need to know, I need to see, it must be really special, this place I can’t see, these things I don’t yet know.

Yet, it was too risky for us to go, too unsafe for him to go alone.

I wonder why there’s such resistance to yielding. Why I’m so prone to striking out on my own in fits of figure it out or fix it before it’s too late.

When all that’s required, all that’s an absolute undeserved gift,

Is to yield.

This morning, I flipped to today in “Jesus Calling”, a kind and beautifully patient collection of words I’ll carry as I go, one open hand to heaven and the other secretly imagining my hand like a child’s reaching up again to the suggestion of my Savior,

“Hold my hand.”

“As you keep your focus on Me, I form you into the one I desire you to be. Your part is to yield to My creative work in you, neither resisting it nor trying to speed it up. Enjoy the tempo of a God-breathed life by letting Me set the pace. Hold My hand in childlike trust, and the way before you will open up step by step.”

Continue and believe, lightly yielding.

You are loved.