Beautiful and Quiet and Noisy

I am not a "nature girl" at all. Don't get me wrong, I love nature. God has made some wonderful things, including stars, trees, oceans, lakes, flowers, animals, and about a zillion and a half other things. I love them all. However, I cannot take heat and humidity, and I hate being "eaten alive" by insects, so I stay indoors most of the time. For a little while tonight though, I was a nature girl.

I went outside to bring the dog in, and it was just so beautiful outside that I just sat in a chair with Cubbie lying quietly in the grass at my feet. Living in a rural area there are not many lights, so on a cloudless night the sky is dark and full of stars, along with an occasional airplane flying by high overhead. For quite a while I just sat, looking up. Praise and prayer just came naturally, sitting there surrounded by all that beauty and the cool air with its occasional refreshing breeze. I quietly sang "Our God is an Awesome God," and the first few lines of Chris Tomlin's "God of Wonders" as I marveled at the stars and the vastness of space.

It was so quiet and beautiful.

Then I sat for awhile with my eyes closed. I started hearing all the life around me. There were insects and frogs nearby, filling the air with their chirps. The birds that spend their whole mornings singing were asleep, turning the stage over to them. Far away, I heard a few dogs barking. A cow mooed, one short, quiet moo. The insects and frogs were the main focus of tonight's concert though.

It was so noisy and beautiful.

Our God truly is an awesome God!

Gray Days

You hear people talk all the time about beautiful sunny days. I love sunny days myself, if they aren't too hot. The weather often affects our moods. When the day is sunny, our outlook on life is sunny. When the day is gray, our outlook is often dark and gloomy. While I do not like too many gloomy days in a row, I believe that too many people do not see the beauty of gloomy days.

I wish I had pictures of the tree down the street from the house I used to live in. Some friends of ours had a fairly large (not large on an oak or redwood scale, but not small) tree in their front yard. On most days it might or might not be noticed. It was a nice enough looking tree, but it didn't really stand out. On gray, gloomy days however, that tree was gorgeous! It had thousands of small lavender colored flowers all over it. On sunny days, you hardly noticed it, but on gray days the lavender color just popped out at you!

I love how God gives us something beautiful to brighten up even the gloomy days! I have a lot of "sunny" days, but I do have occasional gloomy days as well. It is easy to see the good things in my life on the sunny days. It isn't always so easy on the gloomy days, but thankfully God has been helping me find the little lavender flowers of beauty in my gray days. :)