Wow, it's been almost a month! Typical of me, I guess, to lose enthusiasm after a while and start to taper off. Nevertheless, I've been inspired to write about something...a little off-beat for me.
We had just finished dinner and I had finished cleaning up and everything, so I thought I'd sit outside for a bit. It's been a beautiful day and it's starting to stay light later (one of the things I love most about spring and the time change), so I went and sat on the porch. This is something I like to do from time to time. I just sit there and listen to faint sounds of birds, bugs, cows and goats, wind rustling the tree limbs, things like that. I can also hear the trains roll by down at the bottom of the hill...it's not very loud so it's actually a sound I enjoy. Everything is quiet but not too quiet, just peaceful. I look around at the surrounding land. There's the yard and how amazingly green it is. There's a white picket fence separating my grandmother's land from the neighbors and they have a red barn off in the distance. There are rolling hills all around and it's really kind of perfect how all the colors and contrasts play off each other. It's rather like a painting...incidentally, landscape drawings are my favorite kind of art. My grandmother paints and she painted an ocean landscape with a lighthouse in the distance that I will hang in my own house one of these days. Anyway, tangent there...with the murmurs of nature all around, I realize how incredibly lucky I am to live where I do. It's far enough away from "civilization" that I can have moments like this, but close enough where I don't have to go too far to rejoin the world. I also realize how great God is. I am not the best Christian, for sure, but I absolutely believe in God and Jesus and, when I look around me and see all this, I don't see how anyone couldn't believe. A world that is so beautiful couldn't possibly come about by accident. Being outside on days like this is when I feel the closest to God and I feel most grateful that He has provided this panacea for us to experience.
Now I'm sitting here, relaxed, my mind clear, my body comfortable, warm, without pain. How lucky am I to be in this place right now?! Very lucky, absolutely...and fortunate to have moments like this that remind me to appreciate all that I have.
