yellow tulips + iced coffee

something I wrote last year that I still just really love.

My birthday falls on Good Friday this year. Not only is that an incredibly important day for those of us in the Christian faith, but it’s also (much less importantly) the day that I turn twenty-five.

Twenty-five is a mile marker for me. Not only is it a quarter of a century, it is also the year that I always pictured as a child when I thought of “adult me.”

Twenty-five year old me would be married (true).

Twenty-five year old me would have a college degree (not true, but I’m working on it).

Twenty-five year old me would would have a child, maybe even two (add 3 more and that’s true!).

Twenty-five year old me would have a house and a car and a job that she loves (true, true, and true).

As I reflect on what the past twenty-five years have brought me, and what my hopes and desires are for the next twenty-five, I am reminded of something I wrote last year. It’s not very long or deep by any means, but it’s one of the pieces that I re-read every now and then (especially in the middle of winter when I am clutching to any ounce of sunshine I can find).

So much has changed in one short year but everything about “yellow tulips + iced coffee” remains the same — your sunshine can be anything you make it. In this season of lent, as we await the spring weather and prepare for Jesus’s resurrection, may you find a little bit of sunshine and hope in each day.

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April 3, 2021

Having an April birthday and having an obsession with sunshine — in all of its many forms — must go hand in hand, somehow, someway.

sunshine... brown grass turning green, cloudless days after months of gloom, the first thunderstorm of the season (even the mud puddles that follow).

sunshine... reading the Word while the birds sing in the morning, eating supper on the deck in a lawn chair, long evening walks.

sunshine... fresh fruit salad, a new sweatshirt that's perfect for bonfire season, cleaning with the windows open.

and today's sunshine: yellow tulips and iced coffee.

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I've found that I'm a "comfort" type of person. I love the things I love because they bring me comfort and joy. I rewatch Gilmore Girls over and over and over again because it makes me happy, makes me feel whole in a weird way, brings me the comfort most other things don't (other than Jesus).

These things — the tulips, the iced coffee — bring me that same form of comfort.

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I lived in a lot of different houses growing up. My favorite house was our white farmhouse, with red shutters and a wraparound porch, with raspberry bushes and a barn out back. In front, lined with brick, was a variety of colorful plants — my favorite being the tulips that always bloomed each spring.

And the iced coffee? I wish I had a better explanation. Coffee is (as I'm sure anyone that's been around here for longer than a minute knows) a part of my diet... but that's mostly to survive the day. When the weather starts getting warmer, the sun starts peeking out, that's my cue to add the ice. Therefore, the sunshine.

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I urge you to focus on the sunshine this month, friends. Whatever your sunshine may be.

Especially in light of the most important form of "sunshine" this weekend: Jesus, and His willingness to die on the cross for us.