I walk on the same trail pretty much every morning throughout the year – spring, summer, fall and winter.  As the seasons progress the creation around me changes.  Plants change. Animals change. Weather changes. In one way or another things that I experience along the way change as well.

Early one morning, not so long ago, I was walking along, deep in thought.  As, as we walked, God and me, for some reason I noticed there was something missing.  Robins.

Some people make a big deal out of seeing the first robin of the year.  No doubt they see it as a hopeful sign that winter is loosening its grip and spring is just around the corner.  Maybe, for some, that first sighting gets noted in a journal, prompts a phone call to someone special or becomes a reason to bring donuts to work.  I don’t know.

What I do know is that rarely, if ever, do you hear someone talk about seeing the last robin of the year.  Last week, as far as I know, I saw the last robin.  It was a dark morning when a small bundle of feathers skittered across the trail then fluttered into the brush.  I heard a brief chirp and then it was gone.  The last robin.

I’m not sure when that bird’s internal clock said it was time to head south.  I’m not sure where it will end up or if it will ever come back.  I don’t know the future, the robin’s or mine.

Here’s what I do know.  The God who created the seasons, the plants, the robins and you and me, loves his creation.  He loves us.  It’s been that way since the beginning.  He’s been with us all the way – in our past, right now and in our future.  He knows our future because he is already in it.  He’s Alpha and Omega, after all.

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“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26