Seasonal allergies are the bane of my existence in late April and early May thanks to the hedge privet.

They adorn fencerows abundantly, eating up the land, choking the air with their sickeningly sweet fragrance that plugs the sinuses and triggers sneezing fits relieved only by escaping indoors and drugging up with Benadryl.

Claritin doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t touch the itch that starts in my throat and migrates to the inside of my ears.

The inside of my ears! Talk about an itch you can’t scratch!

And as for my itching throat, I go around with my mouth agape as I try to rub the back of my tongue on my soft palate, which gives me the general appearance of a lizard engorging its throat in a mating ritual.

I cannot take Zyrtec or Allegra. They work on the allergies, but they mobilize my dark side, I’ll call it, leading me to break things of consequential value and rage at my kids.

So I’ll stick to plain old tried and true, fast-acting diphenhydramine. As long as I keep moving, I don’t succumb to the drowsiness, and truly I’ve got it better than other folks for whom seasonal allergies are a yearlong battle. In our wonderfully biodiverse neck of the woods, something is always blooming.

At the same time, I’ve been looking for hummingbirds. This spring, I’ve marveled at newly hatched baby bluebirds, watched a bright red cardinal and a crow fight over dog food in a blue plastic bowl, and observed an osprey dive for fish in a muddy pond.

But no hummers, not yet. We are ready for their emerald wings and ruby throats to hover around the feeders. We care for them as if they are children, incapable of finding sustenance on their own.

Truly, they don’t need us. They’ve been migrating long before Wal-Mart and Amazon, imbued as God’s creatures with an internal compass and a memory for plentiful food sources. They reward our efforts by returning faithfully to our porches and yards where we witness their tiny antics play out on summer’s stage.

But they would make it just fine, and probably better, if we weren’t around to “help” them along.

They don’t need us.

For they have the hedges.

I heard it this week, the humming of fast-beating wings, as my daughters sampled some honeysuckle. They often grow together around here, hedge privet and honeysuckle, weaving tight-knit borders dividing pastures and property lines.

I had to look twice, three times. It was not dining on the honeysuckle, not at the moment.

There, high in the hedge, I found my first hummingbird of the season, darting among the creamy whitish blossoms that make my nose drip and my eyes water and my throat itch.

A curse turned into a blessing!

Isn’t that the way of God? Over and over again, He takes our misery and works it for our good! He takes the pain and turns it to joy! He surprises with moments of healing in the strangest places through reminders of His promises—this time, a reminder that His grace is made perfect in weakness.

“Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.”

2 Corinthians 12:9 NLT

There are roses among the thorns of life.

There are hummingbirds among the tangled hedges.

It may take days, weeks, or even a lifetime to see them, but they are there, revealed when we look at them through God’s eyes.

I will listen for the hummingbirds with itching ears and look for them with watery eyes and be thankful, always thankful, for the hedges.

And for Benadryl.