When the Blossom is Over

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For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away. 

Isaiah 18:5

At the beginning of October, I did some major pruning and weeding in my garden to get everything ready for wintering over.

It's therapeutic, getting down in the dirt among my flowers, cutting away what is dead, pulling the weeds out, and cleaning up -- preparing. 

Because when spring returns, so will the flowers blossoming and the green things blooming out -- and I have to make ready now so they will have a fertile place to thrive when the time is right.

Life is exactly like that sometimes -- a place of pruning and more pruning, of cutting back and tearing out, of preparing with the hope that someday there will be a spring.

And there are times that this season can seem everlasting, full of more painful pruning and weeding than you ever thought you would need, and the grief of it can take hold and threaten to overwhelm everything else in your life.

But that is the time to remember ... that the place of pruning and weeding and tearing out is always a place of preparation.

Preparation that submitted to will bring forth a beautiful spring in God's perfect time. A time when we too will be able to THRIVE.

So in the place of waiting for spring ...

in the place of pruning where the pain has taken hold, the joy is hard to grasp and it feels like the ache inside is all there is to life anymore --

remember God's gracious promise of a spring. If not here, than surely an eternal and everlastingly joyful one in His presence if we hold on to the promise to the end.

Where He will be the light -- and the pain will be gone forever -- and the pruning will have a joyful end.

Come, Lord Jesus.

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The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:10

Small Endings and Beginnings

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Summer is coming to a close ... and with it, blackberry season.

This is the signal that it's time to get a pie on. :)

Smoke from the wildfires this year has been the worst I can remember. 

Thankfully, the rain has finally come again and the air has been washed clean!

With the rainfall, a hint of coolness has suddenly appeared, which for Kinsi = HAPPINESS. ;)

And Lightning is as excited as we are ...

... to light up the first fire of fall. :)

It's a beautiful sign of the changing season ...

And just like that ... it is Autumn again.

♥♥♥♥♥

The Sunken Garden | Walter de la Mare

Speak not -- whisper not;

Here bloweth thyme and bergamot;

Softly on the evening hour, 

Secret herbs their spices shower,

Dark-spiked rosemary and myrrh,

Lean-stalked, purple, lavender;

Hides within her bosom, too,

All her sorrows, bitter rue.

Breathe not -- trespass not;

Of this green and darkling spot,

Latticed from the moon's beams,

Perchance a distant dreamer dreams;

Perchance upon its darkening air,

The unseen ghosts of children fare,

Faintly swinging, sway and sweep,

Like lovely sea-flowers in its deep;

While, unmoved, to watch and ward,

Mid its gloomed and daisied sward,

Stands with bowed and dewy head

That one little Leaden lad.

::lavender::

::chamomile::

::lemon verbena::

::rosemary::

::calendula::

♥

Hope for the Righteous | Psalm 14

 "For God is with the righteous generation. You would put to death the counsel of the afflicted, but the Lord is His refuge."

Psalm 14:5-6 

 David begins Psalm 14 with an apparently hopeless statement, "There is no one who does good." In verse 1, all the world has seemingly turned aside ... they are corrupt, committing abominable deeds ... there is not even ONE who does good. What a desolate thought. Reminds me of Elijah's heartache in 1 Kings 19:10 ... "The sons of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left ..."

But hang on, David! As the Lord "looks down from heaven to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God," (v.2) David has an epiphany, declaring, "God is with the righteous generation," (v.5) and "the Lord is his refuge"! (v.6) There is a remnant, just as God reminded Elijah later on in that great man's despair. He was - and we are - part of a righteous generation that God has left alive and it is well and truly living. It might be tiny. It might be hard to find amid this generation of sons of men (just as it was then) who say "there is no God." (v.1) But it is there - hallelujah!

David goes on in v.7 to express his longing for the salvation of Israel. Well - it has come. It has come with a new Kingdom, one that cannot be shaken or crushed. And the spiritual Israel can be glad, for Jesus has already overcome its enemy and WE are living in that age of redemption. What an incredible time to live. The age David hoped for - the age the prophets desired to see - we are the ones privileged to live in it, within the blessings of the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God, the One who ultimately delivered Israel and reigns now until the end of time. What a truly awesome reality.

And because it is reality, I am encouraged today. I do get fainthearted like David and Elijah. I am tempted often to feel incredibly alone and hopeless. But just as David realized when writing this psalm, that is never completely the case. And because of the power of the Son of God, my life will never be hopeless even in my deepest pain: "for God is with the righteous generation ... the Lord is his refuge." Praise the Lord.

♥

Signs of Spring | 2020

Despite the fact that life seems to have stopped in so many routine aspects - God keeps moving the seasons along, reminding me that EVERYTHING has a season. Nothing lasts forever. And there is SO MUCH beauty in that!! ❤

Ya know what they say about April showers ...

Loving the symbolism in this ... all the new green growth coming from the middle of spent, dead stems and flowers. 

Lots of green!

Keeping me company ♥

Yellow.

Roads go ever ever on,

Over rock and under tree,

By caves where never sun has shone,

By streams that never find the sea ...

♥

Words From a Wise Man ...

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What INCREDIBLE words from a man whose whole life lay in complete ruin about him. As God's children, we own this same precious assurance of His presence in our lives, even when we cannot behold Him. God help us take that assurance with us this week into the midst of our ever-changing circumstances, taking down Satan's strongholds, not only holding fast to His path ourselves but spreading its truth to a world desperately in need of it.

Stay well friends!! ♥

 Kinsi

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