The Swinging Song of Life

I woke up yesterday to find the day playing its music cantabile "in singing style". No more of the gray that had characterized the past few weeks. No more of the famous Winter rhythm playing impenetrable crescendo, our hurried frozen strides keeping time as we go out and about: Gray! Cold! Gray! Cold! Snow-snow-snow! Cold! 

No more of that, and all of this singing life! 

We strolled around town, my usual determined pace slowing to breathe in sunshine, allowing my lungs to refill with the new air. Walking in the light together and fellowshipping with one another. By the end of the day, we all had flushed faces (also known as sunburn) and I collapsed into bed, happy and tired. 

I learn through nature. Very often my deepest thoughts come through working in a garden, observing flowers and trees bloom, and contemplating the weather changes. God controls it all which is always fascinating to ponder. So nature teaches me about God, because when I see it's beauty, I see a magnificent Creator. 

I learn about life through nature. The placid lake bringing peace, the lightning storms expunging energy and anger. 

What's fascinating about nature is it's variability. One day it's this and the next day it's that. There's a seed and then a flower, a calm and then a storm. 

Yesterday there was 60 degree weather, and today: today we've got frigid temperatures, fast-falling snow, and a cloud on the lake that makes the world feel so small. Everything's been cancelled, nothing we planned is happening, but everything that God planned is occurring as always. It reminds me that our plans are fragile, vapors that come and go, just like us. 

One day everything's sunny, and then it all changes and it's pouring rain. For type A personalities, people wired to organize and plan, this kind of wrenching away and leaping out in surprise can be difficult to handle. But before I start contemplating the cancellations, the schedules, and the disappointment, I must be sure that I contemplate the goodness and grace right here in this moment. 

Life doesn't start with tomorrow and it's plans, it starts with today and this moment. I live now, not later. I live here, not there. 

So before we root our plans, hopes, and dreams with all certainty that they will be fulfilled, we acknowledge that the weather changes...whether for good or for bad, we can give thanks because it is the careful coordination of our Father that brings us breath and death. His love reigns supreme and our plans don't. 

Open hands and heart to accept snow, accept emergency closings, accept cancellations, and live. Because just as quickly as the snow comes, so does the sun. 

A man of much wisdom said the same thing a long time ago, except I think he says it better:

"In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him." Ecclesiastes 7:14