Broken Alabaster Boxes

In case your yard is still wet and brown, here's some liquid sunshine to hold you over until summer.

September and October mean fall. Lovely, forever-blue skies. Deep golds, reds, oranges. The heavy smell of pumpkin spice and hot chocolate. The flicker of candles. Simmering soup. Crunch of leaves underfoot. Minnesota in fall is endlessly lovely. But now. No lovely days of cool weather. Or crisp mornings laced with frost. Or hot drinks sliding down to warm. Because it's to hot in Grenada. To hot for frost. For cool mornings. For satisfying soups. Just to hot. To hot for anything but the ocean. This place I'm going. What will it be like? Hot. I know that. Different. Very different. Hard. Like here. Yet good, like here. Because God is good. There will not be Minnesota falls there.  Because it's not Minnesota. But there will be other things. Things I will learn to love. And it's ok. Because the God that gave good gifts...

There is this thing about life in the summer. It's a full out run. Panting, sweating, gasping. Most times it feels like we careen into Sunday and crash into our pew with a sigh of relief. We didn't die. Success. But we as a family have begun to keep a tryst in the crazy summer. A tryst with a fire ring and 8 lawn chairs on Saturday night. Sometimes smores. Sometimes biscuits filled with oozing pie filling and creamy whipped topping still warm and smoky. Always coffee. We sit. We look at each other. No jumping for the canner or powering through the tall green in the zero-turn. Not even one more weed pulled or green bean snapped. Sometimes, in exhaustion, we would rather slumber. Or perhaps that last unfinished project nags. But we choose to sit. To hear. To spend time. Because they are more important than the crazy summer. And our choice evidences that.  So that is what we do. Bright fire crackling. Bird wings whipering.  Frogs croaking. The sun sinking.  ...

When winter closes in around, When the sky is forever grey, When you wonder if the sun will ever shine again, Remember, spring is coming. And though now, with mountains of snow or wet sloppy slush, You wonder if it will ever end. He is faithful. Spring is coming. The chorus of birds will soon throb through the air. The spring peepers will be deafening.  And the dark earth will warm and push its things of green. So I think of the spring, remembering that it comes faithfully, And I wait.

Winter. Cold. Dark. Daunting. A struggle against the elements of nature. The wind pushing, pulling, tearing at you. Shrieking, as a person, determined to claim you. The cold, menancing in its intensity. Stalking the unprepared, bidding it's time to snatch the ignorant. The evenings, dark, quiet. The days grey and gloomy, sky pressing down. It feels as though it takes all your determination to simply live. Winter in the north. Yet is there not a blessing in the winter? Is there not something to praise God for? When you begin to count, you find a charm in the winter. Stark white poplar against evergreen. The lazy drift of snowflakes. Nights filled with the noise of Kids Club. Cheerful socks. Evenings spent reading. Birds devouring seed. Warm sweaters. Delicious hot drinks. Leisure time to create gifts. Light spilling out into the dark cold as we hurry in for supper. A comforting bowl of steaming soup. Hockey, breath...