I have some great news...

The jasmine on my front porch are blooming!

When I breathe in the dreamy fragance it makes me smile.

I never realized how significant these flowers would be for me.

Each year they begin to bloom about a week before Mother's Day.

And Mother's Day for me is about Joan.

My own mother.

She loved fragrant flowers.

Lilacs being her favorite.

But lilacs and the desert are not friends.

So around here, jasmine is my lilac.

And when Mother's Day comes around in about a week, the blooms will have filled my porch to overflowing.

The significance being that timing is an amazing thing.

Not just in the blooming of my jasmine, but in life and all it teaches.

The fact that jasmine blooms like this each year means little to most.  But to me the timing of these blossoms is sweet, tender and I feel my mother's love.

The Lord's timing played a large part in my mom's passing.

Why did she linger?

Why did she have to endure to such length?

Why did the weeks turn into months and the months turn into years?

I don't comprehend it perfectly, but for myself I came to understand the extent to which my mom loved her family.

I think she and the Lord had it all worked out.

Always teaching us and wanting to serve, she agreed to the Lord's timing
so that her family could learn a little more,

feel a little deeper,

become a little stronger and

love a little longer.

Timing can be beautiful when we see it as a gift.