“Loon Lake” lay deep in reflections, its morning mists not yet lifted as we emerged from our vehicles to tromp its trails and chat and pray…
Fellowshipping with the Father by His Spirit…together with those who bear the growing likeness of His Son…
…and in such a place…what sweetness.
… and to think we might have missed it had we opted out of facing this morning’s frost…
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. –II Cor.3:18
–LS
Month: November 2011
The Unchanging One
It was a blustery day. Windy and wet! I needed a walk anyway and took my camera just in case there was anything worth a picture on such a gray and unpropitious day…
Wet roads. No trails today. Not in the mood for slip-slopping over mud and slick tree roots…
No’body’ wanted to stand still for a picture…poor little clover, all alone in the ditch and tempest-tossed…
And I didn’t want to stand still to find a good picture either! So I put in my time and hustled home…deciding at the last minute to take a quick tour of my own backyard in search of a little bright something…
The red currant bush was holding out with fortitude despite the wind and weather…
But not much else to note…rotten pumpkins sagging in the way only a pumpkin knows how… sodden garden waste catching rain…cernuous last remains of once-brilliant painted daisies their heads now drooping toward earth…You get the picture. It’s wet. It’s gloomy. Better times have been but for now are past…
Then I poked my head in the greenhouse. It’s just a homemade affair framed roughly with saplings and now-flapping plastic, but it keeps the weather mostly out. And in this quiet out-of-the-wind spot I found a little radiance.
This little bush of a marigold, a misfit among tomatoes and peppers all summer long, just keeps on blooming her heart out in here, oblivious to wind and weather.
And just across from her a vagrant calendula has found a place to bloom for all he’s worth and chase the blues away. Defying winter’s approach he blazes with the beauty of a summer’s day! And I am reminded, it is possible to rejoice, no matter what, when my refuge is with the Unchanging One.
“…for you are my safe refuge, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me.”
“Let me dwell in your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings! Selah.”
Ps.61:3,4 NLT&ESV
–LS
It’s been too long
I haven’t done much hiking this last while since the demise of my hiking companion. And I stopped rambling the trails over across the highway even before that. They seemed to be overrun with bears and I decided to leave them to it. But now that winter’s coming, the bears are slowing down and disappearing and I decided to take the risk. You can be the judge of whether it was worth it…
This area was clear-cut a few years back and has become host to Trailing Blackberry—a cousin to the great thorny variety I suppose, but smaller and more fragrant and more exquisite in essence. I didn’t realize how richly colored their leaves could turn.
But here we are at the long-missed destination—‘The Bench’
And all I could think besides Thank-you God; it’s BEAUTIFUL! …
was, “It’s been too long!” Sooo good to get back here and sit a bit and gaze…
It wasn’t as dark as my camera portrays. It was as though there was a stage and the stage light was shining down through the curtain of cloud…
The shimmer of light on water was glorious. And I thought, how fitting that both light and water are symbolic of the Lord—the light of the world by His Spirit flowing from us in streams of living water water…
Now for a look around to see the little glories…
Refreshed, I headed home pausing along the path as colors caught my eye.
We’ve had a particularly colorful and extended Fall season this year. A delight to the eye. And somehow food for the soul…
This was the most peculiar little wonder of all, a sort of Huckleberry Hoodie. Have never seen anything like it, don’t quite know what ‘happened’ but here these berries are way beyond their season, all huddled together under a vagrant leaf…curious.
One never knows what one will find when traipsing about in God’s creation….No sign of bears, only God’s fingerprints were everywhere!
–LS
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. Habakkuk 2:14