For Mendy

 Mendy hasn't felt well for over a week and so she hasn't been by to see the last vestiges of fall leaves in my backyard. She is fond of the multi-colored maple leaves that are both red and gold, as am I. I had an abundance of them in my backyard this year and I was able to capture quite a few images of these beauties. Fall is special and brief, so you grab every image you can, as you see it.

For you Mendy, hope this lifts your spirits a bit in the midst of your trials and struggles. Thinking about you and keeping you in our prayers.

For each new morning with its light, Father, we thank thee,

For rest and shelter of the night, Father, we thank thee,

For health and food, for love and friends, For everything thy goodness sends, Father, in heaven, we thank thee.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

Something to be thankful for

 In the months following the loss of my sweet Cheryl I struggled greatly with praying. We had just spent the past three years of life, praying earnestly for one of her treatments to extend her quality of life, or we were even bold enough to pray that she might be cured. God knows she suffered greatly from both the disease and the treatments. Our prayers seemed unanswered as she fought and she kept losing her battles.

During those first few months after she  left us, I would begin a prayer and then I would stop at the part where I thanked God, but I couldn't go further, because I was so wounded and decimated by her loss that I could think of nothing to be thankful for. Dave  had left us a year before and Ted had succumbed to Covid-19 just four months before Cheryl passed. Filled with grief and self-pity, the wheels just stopped.  I had nothing to be thankful for.

This continued for six months and my prayers became ineffective. I also couldn't sing and I have been singing all my life. Whenever I would try to sing a song I used to sing to her, my voice would crack and I would burst into tears. I was a man of ineffectual prayer and incapable of singing God's praises. Not much to be thankful for.

I would like to tell you that I experienced a lighting-bolt moment where God pierced the darkness with a flash of brilliant light, but that isn't what happened. Nothing  like it, five or six months after she checked into Heaven, I was still trying to be thankful for something. When my prayer broke down, around Christmas, I also broke down as I thought of her and Ted and Dave and the wonderful Christmases we had spent in the past. 

I wept and started down the same old path when all of a sudden, the obvious truth fell on me like a load of bricks. God had given me over 75 years of brotherly love with Ted, over 52 years with a devoted son, and 27 of the most wonderful years in my life with the woman He had put there. I have much to be thankful for and I now thank God every day for the companion, best friend, counselor, adviser and everything else she was to me. I now pray, "Thank you Jesus for the best 27 years of my life"

Much to be thankful for as another Thanksgiving Day dawns.

Psalm 100: 1-5

1 Make ba joyful shout to the Lord, 1all you lands!

2 Serve the Lord with gladness;

Come before His presence with singing.

3 Know that the Lord, He is God;

cIt is He who has made us, and 2not we ourselves;

dWe are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

4 eEnter into His gates with thanksgiving,

And into His courts with praise.

Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

5 For the Lord is good;

fHis mercy is everlasting,

And His truth endures to all generations.

Autumn in Review 2021

front yard

In the autumn of my life I find a need to reflect on the circumstances of my being. Like the trees that surround me, I have lived a good life, survived the storms that blew my way, aged with a little grace and hopefully will shine my brightest in a show of a glorious ending. Unlike the trees, when I wither and fall away from the source of life I will not reappear on it's branches the following spring. Unlike the trees, I will awaken to a new source of life that will be never-ending, and I will reacquaint with past loved ones that I have dearly longed to see.

Like the trees, going out in a blaze of glory will be a pretty neat exit.

tupelo in front yard

 

tupelo from the house toward the neighbor across the street

NC backroads

more backroads

alongside the road

red maple in backyard

on Tory Rd in Carlson Dairy

at the lake on Carlson Dairy Farm GC

the green across the lake at CDGC

my front yard

my front yard

two houses down across the street

my back yard

back yard

red maple in backyard

backyard

backyard

golden maple in backyard

hickory in backyard

red maple leaf

where God spreads them

with a little help from me

with a lot of help from me

backyard

golden maple in the backyard

red maple in back yard 

view from the deck

behind my back yard

love the view from my deck