The “tink-tink-tink” on the roof caught me by surprise, mixed with the gurgle of coffee percolating in the kitchen. I rubbed my eyes, squinted out the back window. Bright orbs of hail bounced across the yard, above the grass greener than yesterday, all of it a steep contrast to the darkening sky. I poked my head into our bedroom, “It’s hailing.” My husband stirred, pulled himself up from the covers. Together we peaked into our boys’ room, where we found all three of them hidden waist-up by the window blinds. They came out from behind them with huge grins, “It’s hailing!” They ran to the back patio, I crept to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee.

After they retreated back inside, I set to toasting bread and pouring yogurt. I fixed first breakfast, second breakfast, third breakfast for the four-year-old. My head swam as full as the granola filling their bowls to the brim. But then I turned to place another plate of food on the table, and I saw it. “The buds! Boys, look at the buds!”

The afternoon before had welcomed first buds on the trees and bushes in our backyard. I had wandered out with my coffee, and the boys pointed out each little patch of life hanging on limbs. This morning was another world. Buds filled every crevice of our yard, bright green, soft purple, deep auburn, hope wrapped in color.

We lingered at the table after breakfast, pressing the same colors into paper. Oil pastels rubbing and mixing, recreating the world of our backyard. “The hail brought it, you know.” I spoke between sips of coffee and stretches of silence. My son kept coloring, his eyes not looking up. “What?”

“The buds– the hail brought them out. Hard things can bring beauty. You will face hard things in life too, but God can use them to teach you about Himself and His love.”

He traced a beetle, deep red in color, like the one he’d let scurry down his arm at the park the day before. I pressed white into pink, buds forming before my eyes for the second time that morning.

The prayers that fill my days are pleadings. I beg that God will keep my children from harm. Spare us, oh Lord, from hardship. Keep us from evil, from sickness, from pain, from tragedy.

But hail does come, we all know. Storms do turn a morning. The world itself rotates on these incidents. I will keep praying each day for protection, but also for buds. That when the storm does whip the wind around my children, when the hail does fall, that life will follow. That even while the skies are yet dark, my children will glimpse the fruit. That even in a broken world, there is good, and they can be it. They can bring that good, that hope, that life. They can be the fruit, as they abide in the One who brings the rain, and commands the storms.

Child, I will pray that the storms won’t come, all while knowing that some will. This world is fractured. No matter how hard I protect you, you will know the brokenness of it. And so, with each prayer, I will ask that when they do roll in, that you will hold fast to the Vine, and that fruit will come. Child, it will be magnificent. Trust me. You yourself are my evidence of that.

“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

“Drip down, O heavens, from above,
And let the clouds pour down righteousness;
Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit,
And righteousness spring up with it.
I, the Lord, have created it.” Isaiah 45:8