It is everywhere! Mud, absolutely everywhere, on everything, tracked into the house and well beyond the mud room, caked on boots, worked into the denim of jeans and crumbling from the legs of the pants. I’m scrubbing it from the floor, washing away those telltale paw prints from one of the pups who busted through the mud room gate or got overzealous when we headed inside.

I’m sweeping up piles and piles of it, combing it from puppy fur, and washing it from my face, from that one cow who turned suddenly and splashed me – twice – in the corrals, flinging it on me head to toe. And that’s special mud, corral mud. It flings up from the tires of the four wheeler, snow and mud spraying up and all over everyone. Coveralls are stiff with it. Floorboards are caked with it. It’s everywhere. Eventually you just have to accept it.

And it’s glorious.

Mud is a promise.

A promise that springtime is coming, the thaw really is happening. Winter is coming to an end.

A promise of moisture. Life-giving. Sustaining.

It’s hope.

Hope for a good year.

Hope for grass, for healthy livestock.

It is an answer to prayer.

Oh, how we have prayed for relief to this parched land. How we’ve prayed for water to fill the dams. For respite from the drought. Without water, there is no mud. And there is mud. Plenty of it. So there is water.

It’s a reminder.

God’s answers to prayers don’t always come all nice and tidy and recognizable. In fact, usually they don’t. Sometimes they’re mud-caked and messy. Sometimes answers to prayer come paired with reminders of our own fickleness, wanting something but grudgingly trying to tell God that the manner of gifting was wrong. “Sure, that’s what I prayed for, but what I meant was….”

So I’m thankful for the mud. For warmth and thaw. For wet and running water trickling down all the trails, pooling in the most inconvenient places. I’m thankful for springtime. For life. For mud-covered blessings.