Category: Winter

A Place to Still Your Heart

~ Beth ~ 1 Comment

icy water dropletSometimes, in all the wonderful hustle and bustle that December can be, it’s good to take a walk alone in the woods to listen to the stillness…

to quietly admire the strange and wonderful effects of melting and freezing snow and ice…ice on branchto be startled and then delighted when a deer goes leaping across the trail mere feet in front of you…IMG_1714 editto stand and watch the late afternoon sun glint through bits of ice on twiggy branches, like hundreds of cut glass ornaments hung for Christmas…ice on twigsto deeply breathe in crisp cold air and be glad for warm new mittens…IMG_1776

and, as the still permeates your soul, to think about the One who said to “be still and know that I am God”,

the Prince of Peace whose purpose was to bring ultimate and perfect peace on earth, whose first humble coming to earth we will celebrate very soon—and be glad.

“And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.  There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace…to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.”  (Isaiah 9:6-7)

Sometimes in the midst of the busyness, it takes something as far removed from the tinsel and packages as a woodland cathedral robed in winter white, where no instrument plays but the wind whispering through the branches and no voices speak but those of chickadees and squirrels—

to bring your heart back where it needs to be.

Frost

~ Beth ~ 4 Comments

IMG_1611 editIMG_1616 editIt was one of those mornings when the sun rises and the whole outside world is awash in a million sparkles.

From the cozy warmth of my kitchen, that’s a sight breathtaking enough to enjoy even from a distance.

But then I decided to take the time to pull on my snow boots and my warmest jacket and those not-very-warm but better-than-nothing picture-taking gloves, go out into it and zoom in close with a lens.

And I found this, that the sparkles on every blade and branch and fence post were a myriad of tiny delicate fern-like ice formations.  Miniature ice art of unimaginable beauty coated everything in every direction as far as the eye could see.  I quickly forgot the cold as I wandered along the garden and out into the hay field, marveling at the wonderland of beauty.

The idea that a little man named Jack Frost is responsible for all this is a charmingly imaginative one—but when I’m catching my breath at the mind-boggling intricacy of it all, I’m glad to remember that there is a very deliberate Artist behind it all who is no figment of the imagination.

“Out of whose womb comes the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who brings it forth?…by the breath of God frost is given.”  (Job 38:29, 37:10)

IMG_1608 editIMG_1604 editMy breath is only freezing in pale, unexciting puffs of white, which annoyingly fog up the viewfinder of my camera.  But look what His breath does on a cold morning.  Wow.