Hell & High Water

Have you ever heard that saying?  Come hell or high water?  There are times when both arrive and you aren’t allowed to pick and choose which to deal with.  The good news is that the solution for one is the solution to the other.  It’s not that we can control what comes our way all the time but we can choose to respond via our faith in God.  I don’t dictate to God how to respond rather I refuse to let myself wallow in depression or anger…I get sad and mad like anyone else but I will not wallow there.  The Bible says be angry and sin now and put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.  You can’t do either of these things if you’re so under condemnation for feeling things that you spend far longer coming around then you otherwise would.  I don’t believe it was ever God’s intention that this be so. 

 

Right now we have several things troubling our music group and it’s preventing us from having concerts at all this week…in fact it my severely limit our concerts for the rest of the season.  Our albums that we recorded are filled with audio anomalies that are taking copious amounts of times to fix thus we are playing with no new albums to sell…this is very painful financially as I’m sure you can imagine.  These are the kind of things that need real faith.  We have trips planned abroad that are hurt by this kind of thing and so it is beyond just a tough time for Christmas…it effects our church directly and also our lives personally because we are very much invested in the church and its mission.  Faith is needed when we struggle not when we have the answer.  I’d say this is the perfect time for it! 

 

Finally the change of seasons came upon us and with it our first heavy snow while our pumpkins were still outside.  It seems this pumpkin was sick of the change in the weather before it had hardly begun.  This one seems to be trying to be cheerful in spite of it all.  Our third pumpkin appears bewildered though we all knew this was coming.  Many trees were caught not with their pants down but certainly with some of their leaves still on.  Our neighbors trees seemed less prepared then ours for the snow.  Looking up from our downstairs patio shows what I’ll likely be seeing most of the season.  A pleasant surprise in all of this weather change was some unexpected visitors to the front of our house.  We’ve had the antelope visit us before…this is the land where they roam but this group was quite largeand they were quite unconcerned with our observations or picture taking.  They seemed eager for some winter salad!  This large buck was in charge of this harem of prong horns.  I have to say he was magnificent!  The light was fading at this point but I squeezed out these last shots.  Finally the herd began to meander off to the prairie againand I think I’ll follow their lead.  Have a blessed day my friends.