snap...crackle...pop

I was feeling all Mary Tyler Moore today as I strolled the sidewalks of Old Town, skipping a bit; I even waved at some men who were painting one of the shops, readying it for it's grand opening. They waved. It was like my very own musical, minus the music and the other participants. Which reminds me...we really need to dance more...

This week we had our first snow. I'll admit, I was a bit of a doubting Debbie that we would actually get any because the news people got my hopes up so many times last year and we wouldn't even get one snowflake. This one was pretty big, though. Tuesday night we got about 7 inches of snow and it continued all day Wednesday. It was glorious. And I was glad to go into work on Wednesday because a branch fell on a power line and my power was out for about 10 hours. In fact about 150K people lost power in Northern Colorado due to that destructive snow. You see, the trees were not done being all fally and beautiful and most of them still had their beautifully colored leaves. Many of the limbs broke under the weight of the snow and leaves. Some big, some small, some old, some young. Clean-up efforts are still underway.

At first I was so sad for all of the trees; they were all droopy and I imagined them mourning the loss of their limbs. But then it occurred to me that those branches that broke off were weaker than the other ones, maybe some of them were already dying, maybe some of them were just not yet strong enough to carry weight, maybe some of them never would be strong enough. And, although the limbs were not removed cleanly or perhaps even properly, maybe the Lord was just pruning them natures way.

All of this got me to thinking about how often I question the Lord about things that He does. I just don't understand why you would do that, Lord. And He will remind of Isaiah 55:8 where He clearly states that his thoughts are not my thoughts, nor are my ways His ways. I think about the ways the Father has pruned/is pruning the bad from my life--things like perfectionism, lack of confidence and lack of faith. He's used circumstances and situations that I would have liked to avoid, but honestly, I needed to go though, I needed to feel the pain of walking through the fire and rejoice in it's refining power. I can guarantee you that I never thought that mourning the loss of a close friendship would lead to a deeper, more intimate prayer life. I never thought that utter and complete death spoken over me would lead to surrender and increased confidence in the woman that I am in Christ. And, I never could have imagined that being the new girl in a community, yet again, would soften my heart and open my eyes to new ministry opportunities to work both directly and indirectly with those who are imprisoned, voiceless, used and abused.

God is so good, and as long as there are areas that need to be pruned in my life I say, bring on the snow! Or fire! Wind, rain...or other element...


Blessings to you, dear one!