Blue Eyes

July 9, 2015April 6, 2016 ~ Beth ~ 1 Comment

I found a beautiful patch of this blue-eyed grass while I was out walking a week or so ago. They are tiny, delicate flowers and easy to miss on their long slender grass-like stems as they mingle in a sea of other less showy grasses—but aren’t they exquisite?! They are really members of the iris family, but they remind me of spring crocuses with their pointed purple-striped petals and bright starry golden centers.

This week I went walking by the same spot again and stopped to look for them—but they were faded away and gone. I couldn’t even manage to find the empty stems! How glad I was that I taken pictures of these fleeting beauties when I did—and I was sharply reminded of truth this line from Isaiah 40:

“The grass withers, the flower fades…”As I searched in vain through the grass, I walked past a great boulder that has been there for as long as I can remember, unfazed by cold or heat or any battering of the elements. It’s dependable presence struck me as comforting in the moment—and then I realized what an appropriate contrasting illustration it painted of the rest of that verse:

“…but the word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:8)

Flowers of the field, here today, gone tomorrow.

The Word of God, like a rock. In all the fleeting uncertainty of this life, what a comfort that is!

Fireworks

July 4, 2015April 6, 2016 ~ Beth ~ 2 Comments

The Oriental poppies along the milk house are exploding fiery orange and black right now, as stunning as the fireworks will be against the evening sky all over our nation tonight. As we celebrate the birthday of this land we love, I offer this verse of our national hymn as a prayer, both in gratefulness for our heritage, and for the revival of her people:

“Thy love divine hath led us in the past,
In this free land by Thee our lot is cast;
Be Thou our ruler, guardian, guide and stay,
Thy Word our law, Thy paths our chosen way.”

For “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” (Proverbs 14:34)

Golden Slippers

June 18, 2015September 10, 2015 ~ Beth ~ 2 Comments

Along a dusty meandering forest road near our home, I happened upon these lovely little yellow lady-slippers.

They were not hiding away safe in a remote bog or deep, dark forest as one might expect. Instead, they were nodding along the edge of the harsh gravel as a growling grader moved past shattering the stillness of a quiet, rainy morning. And they were popping up along the scarred ugly edges of last winter’s logging, right alongside the rejected fallen trees left behind.

Beautiful little princess feet of gold, spreading the good news of summer come even amidst the less-than-picturesque scenes of everyday dirt and destruction. Good news of renewal and hope and redemption.

So are the feet of all who proclaim the Gospel along the dirty and destructed ways of life—

“As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:15)

It’s kind of like those people are wearing figurative golden slippers as they walk through those rough places, joyful royal ambassadors for the King of kings, bearing the gladdest tidings of all time.

Wild Calla Lilies

June 9, 2015September 10, 2015 ~ Beth ~ 2 Comments

I was never overly fond of calla lilies—until the summer we moved to our current home and I found them growing wild in the swamp down the road. They quickly became my favorite new flower. They are much more diminutive version of the cultivated versions, little white points of petals peeking out from amidst the brilliant green of arrow-shaped leaves, growing up all along the watery edges of still brackish pools. They bloom just as the lilacs are beginning to fade, so it’s become my tradition to walk down and pick a handful of these when it comes time to replace the wilting lilac bouquet on our table. There are so many of them in this spot, I call it the Calla Lily Pools—it’s so lovely!

“Why take you thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all His glory was not arrayed like one of these.” (Matthew 6:28-29)

The Gift of Violets

May 26, 2015September 10, 2015 ~ Beth ~ 1 Comment

For years, it’s been my personal goal every spring to find every color of violet native to our area. (There are actually up to 17 species, but I limit my goal to the four colors—lavender, purple, yellow and white.) Some years, I have time to actually go search the woods for them, some years, I don’t—and this has been one of the latter. So you can imagine my delight when, over the last couple weeks, I stumbled—sometimes literally—across every single one without even trying!

I was the most excited, however, when I happened upon the sweet tiny white violets, which have always been the hardest for me to find. They are the smallest of the violet family, and the least showy—often their humble little faces are sweetly inclined toward the earth, hiding their purple-streaked hearts until you get down very low. They are so diminutive and unassuming, it’s easy to walk right past them, or even step on them without realizing it. But that makes them all the sweeter to me—and they’ve become my personal favorites.Aren’t they exquisite?

To me, the discovery of each of these little blossoms was a gift. A gift from a loving heavenly Father who knows the desires of my heart, even the small ones, and delights to give His children good things. I think He knew that all-four-colors-of violets were just what I needed to lift my spirits this spring. Whether He caused them to grow just where I would look, or guided my footsteps and eyes to just the right place at just the right time, I don’t know. But I do know that they caused me to smile and remember His lovingkindness as I knelt low to take their portraits.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights…” (James 1:17)

What gifts has He given you lately to remind you that He loves you?

Springtime In An Unlikely Place

May 11, 2015September 10, 2015 ~ Beth ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been seeing these little clouds of flowering white trees popping out all over the woods this week, and I’d been planning a hike out to where they’re blooming far across the field near our home—but then I spotted this lovely vignette of white tree trunks and blossoms while I was out driving, just exactly what I was looking for, and I swung in to snap some pictures. At the dump.

It’s ironic, isn’t it? I thought I would take my photos of gorgeous pure white blossoms out along the edge of a beautiful wide open field, to the gentle music of the creek flowing past nearby. Instead I stood behind the peeling paint of a sign that detailed accepted and unaccepted waste for this facility, only a few feet from mountains of filthy garbage, listening to a different creak—that of the metal entrance gate in the wind.

There’s a little picture of something really big here, you know.

We’d all like to imagine our selves and our lives as idyllic and pristine as that pastoral scene I had in mind. Lovely. Serene. Peaceful. Picturesque. In reality, though, we’re all a lot more like that dirty garbage dump. Stinking, ugly sinners with messed up hearts and lives. Not pretty at all.

But—

God can take the filthiest, ugliest waste of a life, wash it whiter than petals on those blossoms, and make it burst forth into life and beauty far beyond anything that I could ever capture with my camera.

Ignore my photos—and think about the incredible beauty of that!

“Something beautiful, something good

All my confusion, He understood,

All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife,

But He made something beautiful of my life.” —Bill Gaither

Because She Loves Pink

May 10, 2015September 10, 2015 ~ Beth ~ 6 Comments

Because my mom’s favorite color is pink, it seems only fitting to post these pictures on Mother’s Day. Even more fitting, because the pictures of this splendid china rose just bursting into bloom were taken in my husband’s grandmother’s yard—so this is really in honor of the mothers on both sides of our family. Aren’t these flowers beautiful? But certainly no more so than the beautiful spiritual heritage our mothers passed down to both my husband and I. We are so grateful!

“I greatly desire to see thee…that I may be filled with joy, when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice, and, I am persuaded, is in thee also.” (2 Timothy 1:4-5)

P.S. I took these pictures in the rain. Thank you Lord—we needed it!

Marsh Marigolds

May 7, 2015September 10, 2015 ~ Beth ~ Leave a comment

Well hello, pretty yellow marigolds! One day that brackish swamp was dark and empty, the next day there you were with your bright sunny faces and skirts of purple-green leaves so delicately ruffled, nodding and smiling as though it were only yesterday we saw each other last and not a whole year slipped by. I am so pleased to see you, too.

But you know what’s really lovely? It’s that you’ll only be bright and pretty along the swampy edges for a couple weeks or so, and then you’ll be gone again until another spring. No, I’m not really happy that you’ll disappear so soon. But the fact that you are so fleeting somehow makes you all the more beautiful, and you are such a sweet reminder to me that “if God so clothes the grass of the field [marigolds of the swamp], which today is, and tomorrow [next week] is cast into the oven [fades back into the murky swamp], shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” (Matthew 6:30) He cares that much for me? Wow. Thank you for the reminder, lovely little flowers.

P.S. Also, thank you for kindly blooming near enough to the edge of the swamp so I could take your portrait today without getting water in my shoes. Dry shoes are nice.

Spring Snowstorm: The Sequel

May 1, 2015September 10, 2015 ~ Beth ~ 1 Comment

“For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth…” (Song of Solomon 2:11-12)

And so, they weathered the snow and here they are at last!

First Flowers of Spring

April 27, 2015September 10, 2015 ~ Beth ~ 2 Comments

“O Lord, how manifold are Thy works!

In wisdom hast Thou made them all;

the earth is full of Thy riches.” (Psalm 104:24)

When the hepaticas push their furry stems up between the dead leaves and pine needles and lift their exquisite, dainty faces up to the sunshine from the forest floor, it is always a certain sign that spring is here to stay. They are like tiny gems, diamond-studded circlets in settings of amethyst, so small one must stoop low and search to find them. But when you do—ah, how easy it is to catch your breath and marvel at the riches of His earth!