Have you ever walked through the woods on a sparkling morning? 

Have you ever touched the rays of the end of spring with your face?

Do you know what the wood violets say?

I hold a little book in my hand, a replica of a hundred-year-old log of how the flowers speak. And I think of the patches of violets I’ve seen on my walks lately. And I think of each one I know who is struggling now. 

Each one of you who feels alone.

There’s a friend with a family of broken relationships. A dear one who longs to dance again, she and her chair, in a movement which always awes me. More than one whose ill mother has just returned home. So many who do not hesitate to bear others’ burdens. A dear girl I know who lifted me up when I was low by her sweet hugs and caring words.

Do you feel alone?

Do you look at the ways the world is wrong, wrong, wrong, and wonder, “What is going on?”

Have you ever asked, “Does God even care?”

If you have, I want you to hear the song of the wood violets.

They sing of faithfulness. 

I hold my little old book and I trace the words. Violets, blue… faithfulness. 

Friends, God is faithful. God is faithful, even when we lose our jobs. Even when we lose our health. 

He is even more faithful when our need is greater. He lets us go through times of deeper want, that He might display His glorious provision.

My heart is hurting, missing my dear church family. I remember a visiting speaker, who told of how his family was saved from East Germany. His little hands were always folded neatly in front. He described how for years, he and his siblings had barely anything to eat. “We would have salt on bread, and then the next day, to change it up, we’d put the salt on the table, and the bread on top and pound it and have salt on bread.” 

There was no way for them to escape Communist control without dying.

Yet God miraculously brought a smuggler who brought them to a train station. They had no ticket and no papers allowing them to leave. They had to go through the customs building, where the officers looked through each item and confiscated everything of value. He described the two suitcases and the sewing machine they wanted to take away. The officers let them through without a second glance.

Then, the train. How were they to go without papers?

Over the loudspeaker, there was an announcement. “Directive from Moscow. The next train can go through without anyone showing papers.”

No papers. No ticket. No way?

No.

God is faithful. He made a way.

He brought their family to safety.

Listen to the wood-violet, friend, singing of faithfulness. 

He is yet near by. The speaker at our church described how God is never “on time.” 

“In my experience, God is always late,” he would say.

As their family readied to leave and waited for the smuggler’s truck to arrive, the road was silent. No one came that night. No one came the next day. No one came that night either. 

It was imperative they leave on time. But he was late.

Why?

Didn’t God care?

God is always late.

If the smuggler had not been late, they would have missed the train, allowing them to board, for free, without papers.

God is never too early, nor too late. He is always right on time. 

God is always faithful.