Serenity

It was a balmy 74 degrees in Paris today, with the remnants of fall still swirling in the breeze about me. So overwhelmed with making a living last October, we failed to mulch the leaves. They're still here, scuttling across the drive with each new gust of wind--piling up against my patio doors and making for themselves nice beds around the box shrubs. I sat out on the patio at lunch today and remembered my yard full of family and friends around a blazing fire one cold October night. We didn't worry about the leaves that night either, except to maybe keep them from the fire pit.

My dog Maggie is growling at the neighbor's puppy who has made us his second family, much to my dismay. He drags items from our garage and proceeds to destroy them--leaving their fragments littered across the yard. I pick up the fragments of a nerf football and wonder how much of it he has eaten. I resent his intrusion into our lives. Maggie resents him. She growls and nips at him. She doesn't know the he cannot take her place. She's my little weather girl.
I brush the long strands of hair out of her eyes. I don't have the funds to get her groomed. I know she probably does not even mind. But I mind. I pull some stray leaves from her coat. She licks my hand and smiles--my fierce protector, my friend, my dog. What a great day to just exist, I tell myself.

I sit at my patio table and read some scripture out of Song of Solomon and Proverbs. God talks of His great love for His bride. He speaks of how He cherishes her and loves her and longs for her love. I know He is calling me to spend time with Him. I feel His gentle hands in the breeze caressing my cheek. He says, "My love, trust me." He says, " I have given you this day. It is a gift."Song of Solomon 7: 13 : "Right at our doorstep I have stored up for you all kinds of tasty fruits."He desires our company. He desires all of us. Proverbs 16:9 says: "We make our own plans, but the Lord decides where we will go." Psalm 44:3 says: "Their strength and weapons were not what won the land and gave them victory. You loved them and fought with your powerful arm and your shining glory."

I must accept the things I cannot seem to change, try as I might. I must have the courage to change the things I can control--which seems to be very little at the moment. I must believe that He is fighting for me with His powerful arm and shining glory. My strength and my weapons are nil. I am utterly at His mercy. But I know that He loves me. And I lift my head up, and I thank Him for sending sunshine and balmy weather on this gorgeous first day of March and allowing me to spend it with Him admiring the work of His mighty hands. It'll be alright. It will all be ok. I will be ok.