It’s Monday as I write, my day off. We are busy making ready for family to visit for Thanksgiving. The grandchildren are mostly small and filled with wonder and eagerness especially when they come out to Bittersweet Farm on the holidays. The teens will be happy that for the first time in five years we now have high-speed wifi. Doesn’t that just warm your heart? I have to admit. I love to live on the backside of nowhere… with high speed wifi.
In our beautiful part of the world, the leaves are gone and they will not appear again for 25 weeks–mid-May of next year. Until then I am determined to get outdoors every one of those 170 days. 150 of those days, six out of seven of them, Lord willing, I will walk at least 30 minutes. I will document my walks with photos and brief journal entries so all my cyber-friends can cheer me on like friends gathered along the racecourse. On most of my walks I will get up in the morning, dress for the weather, and walk fifteen minutes away from our house. Then I will turn and come back. On other occasions I will drive to special places to walk in villages, towns, parks, and on trails.
Walking after a fresh snowfall shows you how many critters share your woods and fields. Those who walk leave their tracks and this morning in the wind and winter sun I left my tracks among them. As often as the snow falls until the leaves return I will continue. Everything I see was created by God and I, too am one of his creatures. By his good grace and through his Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, I am one of his children.
I will pray for occasional thaws when I can ride one of my bikes. In early February I hope to enjoy the tubing run up at Camp Barakel, maybe even cross-country ski and skate and walk across the icy lake. Maybe the sky will be clear and I can take a night walk. Out under the winter sky among his creation every day until spring returns I will remind myself that I am his one of his creatures–and thank him that I am his child.
“Know that the LORD, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people,
and the sheep of his pasture.”
(Psalm 100:3, ESV)
Blessed Thanksgiving to each of you. Thanks for reading. It’s nice to know you are out there.
Bittersweet Farm I Jackson County, Michigan I November 21, 2022
Blessed Thanksgiving and have a delightful, memorable visit with family there at Bittersweet Farm!