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!

Habakkuk 3:17-19

Wow! It was as if Habakkuk was speaking directly to me about our financial problems, and our determination to always praise God and to have faith through all we go through.

"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength, he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights." Habakkuk 3:17-19 (NIV)