word pictures from a morning road-trip

...traveling to Michigan on a spring morning through sunshiny fog-sprinkled countryside....Daddy drives, Mother beside quizzes him on the Baptist catechism: "How many persons are there in the godhead?”…roadside dandelions have gone to seed and their fuzzy gray heads are sodden with morning dew.…countless blossoming lilac bushes adorn the yards of otherwise shoddy and humble dwellings, or merely stand by the road, resplendent with dew-heavy purple clusters…if I were driving I would have stopped to smell them…the otherwise green forests by the highway are now laced with the white-dotted branches of dogwood and wild apple trees…thick pearl-grey strands of mists float out of the valleys and curl over the mountain treetops to rise into the warming morning air....through wispy mist-veils, the soft spring sky shines blue, and as the mist departs, the mountainside's fresh-leaved trees emerge, their pale green foliage vivid against moisture-blackened trunks…some tiny fuchsia flowers on the forest floor flash by almost unseen, surprising smudges of pink against the brown earth….a small plowed field appears in a clearing on a shrubby slope, an oblong spot of bumpy bareness, long grass on every side leans over to encroach on the upturned clods of rich brown earth, thick-strewn with pale, stiff stubble of last year’s cornstalks...

where there are no pictures, words must be taught to suffice

what is trustworthy

"Circumstances often lie to us, and we cannot trust our feelings."
- C. J. Mahaney

It sounds like nothing profound, but it has resounded its clear note of truth in my mind again and again - a clear and forceful exhortation to believe nothing but the One whose word is truth, regardless of circumstances or feelings.

That word says,
"I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them." - Jer 32:4

and
"for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." - Rom 8:28

This word never lies.

In Need of Grace

Lord grant us grace,

for the grace lies with you

and with us lies the need.


" Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace,
that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help in time of need."
- Hebrews 4:16 ESV