I first read Hamilton Duck’s Springtime Story when I was 4. I’m not sure when my mom began reading it to me, but she read it quite often, enough that I learned to read it for myself. One day I sat with my mom, opened the book that almost engulfed me, arms spread wide as I held its pages and considered the brightly colored pictures. Carefully and intentionally, with each turn of the page, I recited the words, one at a time, with a slight inflection, just as my mom read it to me.

“Early one morning …” I began, “Hamilton Duck woke up.”

I knew the story by heart, what would happen in the end, but something happened as I spoke, turned each page, took in the illustrations, and told the story myself.

I sat with Hamilton Duck as he woke up to sunshine bursting through his window and as a bird’s song reached his ears. I cheered alongside him as the bird declared, “spring is here” not really knowing what spring fully meant, only that it was good.

I walked beside Hamilton Duck as he enjoyed the spring day, played with his shadow, and greeted his friends that flew in the air and those that swam in the pond. Tired, I tucked in beside him as he lay down for a short little nap.

Stories Change Everything
The stories we tell and those we listen to have the power to change everything. In Between the Listening and the Telling, author Mark Yaconelli writes, “Storytelling is the most intimate form of communication. It’s a way of inviting the listener (or reader) to enter into what we have known, what we have suffered, what we have overcome” (pg. 15).

My 4-year-old self recognized this gift of story long before I knew the letters that I read. I felt Hamilton’s joy and was about to taste his brush with fear. For not long after Hamilton Duck fell asleep, he was awakened by the blowing wind and something tickling his face.

Snow. In the middle of spring

My middle-of-life self peers back to my 4-year-old self with tenderness. At first glance, Hamilton’s plight seemed so big and scary. What was swirling around him —was that really snow? Where did the spring day disappear to?

I think about the dips and turns my life has taken and recognized Hamilton’s questions. What just happened? I wonder as the way I traveled suddenly seemed littered with potholes and rocks threatening to knock me off course.

Lord, I cried. Don’t you see what’s happening to me? 

Or in Hamilton’s words … is this really snow swirling around me?

Or the disciples waking Jesus, asleep in the stern on a cushion, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’” (Mark 4:38).

When our eyes look at our circumstances, disappointment and discouragement disrupt when life doesn’t go as we expect. And often as disappointment builds, we question the very goodness of God’s character. But when we shift our gaze from the swirl of our circumstances to the lens of his grace, everything changes.

Spring Snow?
Hamilton declared, “It’s snowing!”

There’s chaos around us, Lord.

“I’ll get chilly and catch a cold.”

I feel anxious and worried that we won’t have enough, that I won’t be enough.

“How nice this snow smells,” thought Duck.

But God, You’ve provided for me in the past.

“And it is pink. I’m in the middle of a pink snowstorm which has a nice smell!”

I remember Your provision and peace, even in the hardest of times.

 “Why, this is not snow … these are blossoms.”

You are with me, Lord, and promise never to leave me nor forsake me. You walk with me through the valley. I am not alone. And what I see with my physical eyes may not be what it seems.

What I see with my physical eyes … it is not always what it seems.

My 4-year-old heart jumped with joy as Hamilton realized he didn’t fall asleep in a snowstorm —those were just blossoms on a tree. What he saw wasn’t what it seemed.

It’s Not Always What You Perceive
Stories teach us to look beyond what we see, to peer past the obvious for what might be hidden behind. Sometimes what we see isn’t what it seems.

Grace might be hidden in disappointment.

Love might be tucked beside loss.

Goodness might be embedded in trials.

And sometimes snow really is just a flurry of apple blossoms.

Hamilton Duck taught me that. 

“I will open my mouth with a parable; I will utter hidden things, things from of old—things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done” Psalm 78:2-4.