The Window

  When Mark is not working, one of his favorite things to do is fish.  It matters not if the fish are biting, it is just his idea of fun to fish.  Crazy thing is, even if the "fish are not biting" (according to others), he can find them and come home with a boatload.  This is all fine by me as I love seafood!  

  Early in the morning, he and I will take a hike down the hillside to the pier.  There, he loads the boat with fishing gear and heads out onto the Bay to have his fun while I stay behind on the pier.  This is my meditation time.  Watching the sun rise above the pines can be both soothing and invigorating at the same time.  It is merely how you look at things and what your mind needs that determines the effect the sun has on you.  If I am stressed, the sunrise can calm.  If I am needing that pep talk to get me motivated, the same sunrise can do that.  I find peace at this time of day.

  The other morning, there was a particularly beautiful sunrise.  As the sky started to brighten, there were numerous clouds that were held over from the night's showers.  These clouds cast the most incredible reflections on the still waters.  It was breathtaking.  That morning, it was more in those reflections that I found my peace. 

 The week had been one of stressing over health issues and, to be honest, I had begrudgingly made the hike to the pier.  I just felt far too tired to even think about walking but Mark asked so I went.  As I sat there looking at the sunrise and the reflections on the water, I noticed a pattern that struck me as unusual.  A hole in the clouds made the perfect window for God to be reaching out to me.  It was as if he was telling me that things were ok and that he was handling all my problems.  I just had to let him do his work.

   Sometimes we face uncertainties in our lives but instead of letting God take over, we are unwilling to fully turn loose of things.  It is a fear that we will not be in control of our own destiny that keeps us chained.  I pondered just how hard it was for me to let go.  It had always been drilled into my head that I should never depend on others to do what I can do for myself.  Was I truly ready to just hand things over?  Fretting over things is useless.  Worrying can cause worse problems.   It is time.  

Blue Pickerels, Bees and Small Blessings

  Meandering about the hillside today enjoying the warm weather, my sister-in-law and I noticed that most of the pond plants had met their demise with the recent cold spell.  The water hyacinths looked pretty bad indeed!  Their leaves were all shriveled and brown.  A few were obviously blooming when the temperatures dropped below freezing. The flowers were still there but were now a brown, slimy mess instead of the lovely purple that they usually are. Overall, the pond looks bad...really bad and smelled worse!  As soon as I get caught up on other chores, the thing will receive one last, good cleaning before I let it rest for winter. The dragonfly larvae will hunker down among the roots of the water lilies and hyacinths and ride out the cold weather.

  With all the brown in the garden, the lone blue pickerel bloom stood out like a sore thumb.  Why this plant survived is beyond me.  Granted it was a pathetic specimen of a bloom, it was still a bright spot in the midst of yuck! It was perfect for the occasion.  The flower was all that was needed.  On closer inspection, I found that Cynthia and I were not the only ones who found the flower.  A bee was working the pollen to find a bit to eat.  This brought up another question.  How did that bee survive the freeze?  

  These occurrences made me ponder the odds of coincidences.  That lone bee was out buzzing about the garden in search of a food source and came across the lone bloom.  How unusual is that?  It was sort of like it was meant to be.  God knew His critter would be needing a bit of nourishment and popped that flower into bloom.  Hmmm?  Yep, just like He knows when we need spiritual nourishment, it is always there.  We just need to look around. Blessings abound where we least expect.