On the Nature of Change

We had a heat wave this past week, followed by a violent thunderstorm. This morning, the world was transformed—daffodils, flowering plum trees, mint-green grass, and new leaves just beginning to unfurl. Overnight, everything changed.

Maybe I missed the subtle buildup. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. Either way, spring didn’t creep in—it exploded.

Life can feel like that. There are times we get stuck in a gray, leafless stretch—flat, heavy, unmoving. Days blur together, and nothing seems to shift. And then, suddenly, something breaks through. Sometimes it’s dramatic, like a violent storm that clears the air. Other times, the change was quietly building all along, just outside our awareness.

The danger is assuming that what we feel now is permanent. It rarely is. Beneath the surface, movement is almost always underway—small shifts, unseen growth, the early signs of renewal waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves.