Picket Fences

Ecclesiastes 3 (NIV) 1-4 A Time for Everything There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: 2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance… This last weekend the rains were coming down hard. Although a true Pacific Northwestern is known to not use an umbrella all of the time, the rains this weekend caused quite a few of us to pull them out from where they’d been stored. The water was high on the roads and windshield wipers were working on high in order to have clear visibility. In life guilt, hurt, anger, or un-forgiveness can cause the road we are walking daily to be unclear. Sometimes we can hold onto things we’ve done or someone else did to us in the past and we carry it with us daily. Or we are just plain angry over things in life. Maybe we’ve been...

Boots! I love to wear boots during the fall and winter as much as I love to wear my flip-flops during the summer. When I saw this pair of boots at a consignment store I picked them up to check the size. They were a size and a half to small. Still… I put my foot in them and surprisingly, other than being a little tight, they fit. I rushed over to the mirror and admired the way they looked with my jeans. I was really liking those boots. I was tempted to buy them even though buying boots is not in my budget right now. Times are tight and buying them would have made it tighter. Still, I battled back and forth, even after my right foot started to go numb from lack of circulation. I just kept stretching my feet hoping to make the tightness go away. Then a thought drifted through my head. You’re trying to wear someone else’s shoes. I felt a bit uncomfortable with that and took them off. There was a lady looking at shoes and I asked her what size she wore. It was the sam...

Although I really love Indian summers. I miss the gentle September breezes we normally get as summer turns into fall. A few days this week, instead of gentle breezes, we experienced some October wind. The sun may have been shining, but the air was chilly and the wind was strong. When I walked to my car it was raining pine needles. If they hit my face or head just right it kind of hurt. Pine needles covered my car. Broken branches and leaves blew across the streets. The wind seemed so strong for a while that I hoped none of the trees around my place would fall. This morning was a different story. I went out for a walk, the air was crisp and cool. The wind had settled down a bit and the pine needles were staying attached the trees. When the sun rose higher in the sky it even started feeling a bit warm. What a change from one day to the next… Isn’t that how seasons are though? Constant changes…even though every year we see the same cycle…each season is different. Someti...