Winter’s grip is not forever

Arrived home yesterday on a red-eye flight from Alaska…

Winter still claims the landscape there.

Glaciers preside as though eternal…

Snow still threatens motorists in disregard for the turn of the calendar page to April…

And the primary  indication of spring is the fast lengthening days and the rise of temperatures from REALLY cold to just cold!

Yes, there is glory in a winter’s landscape but all creation longs for spring to break  winter’s grip.

Deep in this wintery world, up a lonely pipeline access road…

down a snowy drive, nestled in neatly pruned evergreens

resides a lonely wife and mother waiting for Spring, the breaking of Winter’s grip…

We kids went to ease the loneliness for a moment, to share the waiting…

Returning ‘home’ to the green of a fresh-born spring I was reminded again of how the cycling seasons pattern for us a hope that the dark seasons of life are not forever.  Spring does come. And it is all the more glorious for the long waiting!

The willow outside our window has traded her drab dress for a garment of praise, a lovely thing that soothes snow-blinded eyes…

Our King is on the move…His Kingdom is eternal.

--LS

“…weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” Ps.30:5

Homestyle days…

I’ve been home just a week tonight.  I find it a wonder to be able to traverse in hours distances that would have been unthinkable to all the generations before us… Anyway, left Alaska with winter seeming imminent…

…and came home to take my weekly Saturday prayer hike in our lushly carpeted woodlands.  It’s mushroom picking season and we gleaned some chanterelles in the process, and had a little lunch break on these rustic little ‘toadstools’ in the middle of nowhere…


Canadians jump the gun on Thanksgiving celebration so Monday we marked our pumpkin harvest with homemade pie and the classic accompaniments…Our garden also contributed the potatoes,tomatoes, sage and table decorations, oh! and the apples for the apple pie!… The best part was having all the kids (minus Micah of course)  around the table for another year. 

Cycling days are another commodity not to be taken for granted at this time of year.  We had one of those glorious bright fall afternoons today and got to accompany our very own MP (Member of Parliament) on a promotional ride to catch the ferry—He’s “riding his riding” and was glad for the company.  A local bike shop saved the day when John needed an emergency pedal replacement enroute!

And tonight just when I thought the possibility for picture-taking gone, God tinted the sunset to catch my eye and give me just one more…

“Praise the LORD! Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty firmament!”  Ps.150:1
--LS
“One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.” Ps. 27:4

It’s Time…

It’s time…I kissed him gently on his age-softened forehead and said “I have to go now”…Being half asleep he did not protest the kiss or acknowledge the leave-taking.  In my pocket I held his speckled river rock, the one he’d brought to show me this morning along with a miniature machine like the ones he used to operate…I’ll put it with the unique flat skipping rock he gifted me another year… Dad likes rocks, and trucks still…but has lost the significance of good-byes. 

It’s a frosty bright morning, 15F (-10C), the clear weather has held.  It’s time to fly away and trust to God the ones that stay behind to brave another Alaska winter.

The hours elapse quickly engaged in conversation with a new friend and surrounded by such beauty…

  This God of ours that caused mountains to rise, promises to move them too in response to faith…

We’re counting on it!

--LS
As the mountains [are] round about Jerusalem, so the LORD [is] round about his people from henceforth even for ever. Ps.125:2

Rugged New Territory

This awesome and rugged wilderness stretches as far as the eye can see as I descend to Alaska…

…home to two once rugged individuals with dreams of setting up housekeeping in this wilderness. I know them as Mom & Dad, still as tenacious as ever to live out their dream, but not quite so rugged…

The Alaskan wilderness is wool-gathering in anticipation of winter…

The sun, though bright, is lower in the sky now, the days shortening…

Wilderness lies at the end of any given road here. One must know the way and be prepared…

I have not been this way before…Will we be lost? Unfamiliar trails these, on the edge of vast expanses…
How glad I am that the Lord is my shepherd.  He knows the way we take…and goes the way before. 

And He leads the way when the cry of the heart is: “I just wanna’ go home…”  Sometimes that’s the only road one needs to know…

  The one who said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” leads us each along this road of life---and we are indeed homeward bound.
Thanks for your prayers as I tread in new territory, both literally and figuratively!
--LS

Even the chickadee trusts in God’s Providence. Though worth but a penny, not one shall fall apart from His notice. (Mt.10:29) We’re in good hands!