Tucked away…

“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

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