Robin's ladder

I was feeling super out of sorts this morning, so I let Lily take me on a walk through the neighborhood. My girl is much more stubborn and strong-willed than me (yes, that is possible), so really I had no choice...

Lily led me right to a rarely visited spot behind the playground that was cool and damp and breezy. I stood for a while, quietly watching a hawk soaring high above us next to one lone, wispy cloud. Then, I stared for a few moments at a magnificent dragonfly darting in and out of the shade just above our heads. 

The brilliant red flowers of a bush caught my eye. I had just moved closer to snap a photo with my phone, when I noticed these palm fronds stacked exactly like stair steps, one right after the other all the way up nearly twenty feet in a spiral around their tree. 

I thought of Jacob's dream ladder in Genesis and realized that right now I feel probably about as unsure as he did when he began his journey to a new land. Although work life is changing in good and exciting and blessed and terrific ways, even "good" can be scary as hell. 

In viewing my leafy ladder, I recall that dark, lonely night when God gave Jacob the vision he needed most. Today, that story of Hope has helped me to begin to shift my own vision out of the worrisome depths of wondering and back upward where it belongs.

Though I'd much prefer to SEE the path ahead of me and exactly where to step next, I do know that Path is most surely there...(somewhere).