We’ve been sleeping with an extra cover the bed for the last few weeks, but tonight the temperature is dipping into the mid-forties so we turned on the furnace. Down in the basement the faithful appliance goes to work and in just a couple minutes a beautiful stream of warmth fills the room to just the perfect temperature and then falls quiet.
Last week I decided to test the furnace just to be sure it was ready for the season. It wasn’t. I called Keith Gillmore who is as handy as they come and an expert at furnaces. He came over tonight for a good talk and noticed a part that was supposed to be turning was not turning. He removed a few screws and discovered a dead bat was plugging the works.
We stood outside for a bit to talk about furnaces and restoring old cars and making cider. Keith grew up on a farm with an orchard making cider. I asked him if he missed it this time of year. He said he didn’t but a smile comes to his face as the tells his cider-house stories. Something about it just seems right standing out in the cool of an October nightfall while the farmer back of Bittersweet Farm shaves the last remaining rows of corn off his place and pours the precious fruit of the earth into a waiting grain truck.
I love living in a place where deer and wild turkeys stroll around the back acre, geese and cranes soar overhead, bittersweet grows in the rocky fencerow, and bats and other critters flit and seal about in the darkness. The windows are closed to the night air tonight, but my walk will be bracing in the morning.
The trees bending over the road are beginning to turn orange and yellow. When the sun falls on them they irradiate their color. Something in the beauty of it leaps into our soul.
When I drive through a tunnel of October-tinted trees it is a worship experience without fail. May heart rises up in grateful praise. The Great Artist of the Universe did not have to paint with such vivid and captivating colors but He did. He did it as a witness to His goodness to draw your soul upward to Him.
Jesus himself is the Great Creator and only he can satisfy your heart. He alone should have your heart.
On one of the Apostle Paul’s church-planting missions he visited Lystra. God allowed them to heal a man who had not been able to walk from birth. When people of Lystra saw this they tried to worship Paul and Barnabas. The men quickly reminded them that only God who made the heaven and the earth and all that is in them was worthy of worship and able to satisfy the deepest longings of their souls.
“Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”” (Acts 14:17, ESV)
There is something to think about when you are lying in your bed on a cool October night and you year the furnace kick on.
Ken Pierpont
Bittersweet Farm
Summit Township, Michigan
October 8, 2018
Enjoy this story. We look forward to visiting soon. Praying for you and your family and ministry!
Pastor Ken, I am blessed by your writing so much! You are able to express in words what my own soul and heart feel. We came home a week ago to a cold house from a pleasant warm vacation in Arizona and had to call our local heating company. No bat but a lot of dust blocking where it needed air to run. Thankful for many things that make life comfortable and the not so comfortable things still keep us looking to Jesus!
So glad a took a moment out of my busy morning to read your article. I too am amazed by the beauty of it all. What an awesome Creator we have! I have a very tiny, deep blue Beta fish. I could stare at him forever, so delicately detailed. I believe that he recognizes me, seems to show off his beauty when I approach the bowl.
Dottie, Toni, Melony;
Thanks for your comments. Autumn glory just draws the words out of me. Thanks for taking time to enjoy them. It’s a little like preparing a meal of some of your favorite dished and then watching the delight on the faces of people when they enjoy them.