Blossoms

There are times we feel frustrated. I wrote about that just this past week. I was feeling frustrated. But there are also times we can feel incredibly blessed. Such was this past weekend. A weekend God showered the blessings down.

Saturday I went for a long walk. My wife and I are blessed to live right next to a state park. She and I spend hours there - walking, hiking, swimming. What a blessing it was as I went for my first extended walk of the year, just a shade over 13 miles.

I always lug all of my camera equipment along . . . just in case I see something worth remembering. I was glad I did.

I spent a lot of time early on looking for the male black bear that others have seen in the area. Nothing. Oh well. Maybe next time. But what I was really hoping to see was some early spring flowers. We had a terrible winter - long and cold. Very depressing. The sun shining brightly on Saturday was a welcome sight . . . and so were the blossoms on the forest floor.

I didn't see them right away. I had to walk for several miles before I saw any blossoms but the wait was worth it in the end. I walked through areas of the forest where oak wilt had killed many of the trees. The DNR had fenced off the area to keep the deer out. It was sad to see acre after acre of death. But out of death comes life.

This weekend I received an e-mail from our church's missionary in Turkey. His name is Brian Phipps. Brian reported that one of the men he had been witnessing to recently converted from Islam to Christianity.

Anyone see any similarity between the two pictures in this post?

We can go through seasons of drought in our lives. Being frustrated with how things are going. But when those blessings come, whether springing forth from the forest floor or rising up out of a pond of water . . .

Blessed be the name of the Lord!!
 

"24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." - John 12:24