"If Winter comes, can Spring be far Behind?"

Summer...long days, glorious cool mornings, hot afternoons, beautiful clouds, no coats, fresh vegetables from the garden to eat and beautiful flowers blooming along with butterflies and hummingbirds coming to drink their sweet nectar, iced tea by the gallon and ice cream...watermelon and bing cherries.

A wonderful time of the year...and it comes every year.

I remember standing at the window six months ago looking out at my garden--dead. Ice covered the pond and brown covered the rest.  The only green was the pine trees and junipers.  There were birds, lots of them but no color. even the finches' red feathers had grayed.

But I remember the hope that filled my insides as I thought about what was happening under the soil, about the roots that even then were going deeper to get nourishment--even in times of deadness, they were growing deeper, stronger, waiting for the promise of life...coming soon.

I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that come spring, come summer, come fall there would be abundant color, because of what was happening right then in the coldness and deadness. SPRING was coming...

After all one of my favorite poems is "Ode to the West Wind" by P.B. Shelley with the poem ending,
"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" If you have never read this poem, take a few and enjoy the depth of Shelley's meaning here.  Just click on the purple and it will come up.

Even God, the creator of all this, let us know in His word that we could depend on Him just as certainly as we can on the seasons changing. Be encouraged...time passes, circumstances change, as life happens we get to know God more and trust Him...but always....always....forever... God is with us.

I pray the pictures of my garden and other things I've taken this summer will encourage you as you read what God has said in his Word.

Genesis 1:14

 And God said, 

"Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. 

And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years,"

Ecclesiastes 3:1+

  For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 

a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 

a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;...

Daniel 2:21 

He changes times and seasons; 

he removes kings and sets up kings; 

he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding;

Genesis 8:22 

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, 

cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.

Psalm 104:19 

He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting.

Psalm 1:3 

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.  In all that he does, he prospers.

Galations 6:9 

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

Isaiah 55:10-11

  For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there 

but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, 

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; 

it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, 

and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Amos 5:8 

He who made the Pleiades and Orion, 

and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night, 

who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, 

the Lord is his name;

Psalm 65:11 

You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.