Ah, April. Finally, April. Winter’s blanket of snow has been replaced by a carpet of color. Blooms and blossoms seem to outnumber blades of grass. Drive in any direction this weekend and you’ll understand why someone had to title a song “America, the Beautiful.”

I would know because last weekend, my wife and I had to drive halfway across the land from Dallas to New Jersey. When the sun rose over the Smoky Mountains we had no idea it was a curtain rising on Spring’s big show. Purple paulownia trees were our escort across I40 and up I81 in Virginia. Countless conversations were interrupted by a caught breath as we passed wildflowers and well-plotted beds in bloom. In Annapolis, small white and yellow tulips in a cul-da-sac brought a dead end to life. New Jersey? The accepted wisdom that the state is ugly is actually propaganda spread by Jersey natives in an effort to keep the rest of us out. As surely as Chris Christie likes pizza, Jersey is, indeed, “The Garden State.”

But the flowers we spotted along the way remind me of something deeper than nature’s beauty. The beauty of “nature’s God.” We were not on a joy ride. Heavy hearts and sad fortune awaited us on the other end. But Jesus spoke of such anxious times as these. “Consider the lilies of the field; how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” (Matthew 6:29 RSV) How much more beautifully will He clothe us and tend us, He went on to say, if we put aside our anxiety and trust Him and His righteousness?

A thought to keep near as we breathe in this amazing bouquet of images from America’s Spring 2015, gathered by our own Blair Hitch.