Autumn Leaves

Reblogged in response to the Daily Prompt, Leaf, and also, because the first day of Autumn just past. 🙂

Following Him Beside Still Waters

In response to Cee’s Fun Photo Challenge: Autumn – Metal. You may remember the fall photos I shared last February of my grandma’s lake – but that same day, I took a bunch of close-ups of leaves as well that I haven’t shared before.

This one is probably my favorite of these. I like how the fall colors pop against the reflection of the sky on the lake:

These scarlet leaves were so glossy that glare ruined many of my shots, but this one turned out:

I believe these are oak leaves:

And I think these are maple. I like how half is changing and the other half is green, like it couldn’t decide if it was ready to embrace autumn:

If you want to see more fall photos (and a poem), I posted this last November: Fall Magic

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Out Of The Blue

Before we get to the photos… you may have noticed the lack of posts this week. My uncle is staying with us. He left the Texas coast right before Harvey arrived, and it’s a good thing he did; that part of Texas was hit hard. Please pray for Houston and the surrounding areas. ❤

Dragonfly, with the blue sky filtering through the wings and the trees in the background – I love pattern in the wings 💙

Love the color theme for this weeks’ photography challenge from Dutch Goes the Photo! – blue! Turns out, Cee’s Fun Photo Challenge‘s theme this week is “a color that starts with B,” which is quite fortunate. And the Daily Post’s prompt is “Structure,” which I showcased above with the structure in the dragonflies wings, so I’m killing three birds with one stone instead of two here. (Poor birds…! 😜)

Flying vulture silhouetted against the blue sky

I’m enamored by blue, especially in the sky and reflections of the sky on my grandma’s lake. (Click if you want to see more photos of the lake.)

And then… I remembered some hyacinths I bought before Easter of last year. (If you’d like to see more of these flowers, click here.)

And lastly: a mushroom! 🙂 (If you want to see more of this mushroom, click here.)

Melodies Carry Me Up And Away

(This was supposed to be posted a while ago – apparently I accidentally made it a draft instead of publishing it. 😅 Oops.)

It’s week 32 of 100 Word Wednesday and here is the photo and my response. 🙂 If you’d like to join in, just click the link! 😉 The rhyming pattern on this one is a bit unusual; I’m not sure how it happened, it just… did. 😅

I love this image, BikurGirl! 😍

Image credit: Bikurgurl, 2017

Walking down the street
Sky is blue of cerulean type,
Clouds are puffy and whimsical
Yet my soul is downcast

Was dragging my feet
When tunes threatened to wipe
Away sadness with musical
Splendor; sadness couldn’t last.

Melodies carry me up and away
Dancing along strings
Floating as me it brings,
To places I hadn’t been in years.

Took me back in the day:
Church choir singing,
On those Sunday mornings;
It brought me to tears.

Such sweet songs it was,
Oh, how strings and wood
Can create beauty
And bring nostalgia within!

I felt God’s perfect love
Saw the choices; I could
Go back to His mercy –
And be forgiven.

Faith Is Like A Tea Bag…

Thanks to Angela for having a discussion with me about tea – I couldn’t stop thinking about tea after that, and then I remembered a quote I’d read once by Eleanor Roosevelt: “A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.” I propose that faith is like that as well… you never know how strong it is until you end up in hot water.

And I’d love to take this analogy a bit further. If faith is like a tea bag, then what does the water represent? Trials and hardships, perhaps?

If this is so, then here there is only one thing left to ask: When placed in hot water, does your faith make tea, or do you turn the water lukewarm with an icy heart?

“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:15 & 16)

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. (James 1:2-4)

Thirst

This is my first time participating in the Stream of Consciousnesses Saturday (on a Sunday, at that! Sorry I’m late seeing the prompt… 😅) Here is my first attempt at it. It’s harder than I thought it would be. I’m not used to not editing what I write; the urge to backspace is insane! 😂 Anyway, here it is, along with a photo I shared a while back that happens to go with my theme:

As the Psalmist, my soul pants for the Living Water. I follow Him beside the still waters and He gives me drink. He knows that I thirst, and He doesn’t give me oil instead of water; He knows my soul and what I crave. He doesn’t hide the water from me, but lets me drink freely, until I am satisfied. Praise be to God for not holding back from me!

Reconstruction

The walls that I’ve built
Come bulldozing down
The idols, sins, and guilt
Become one with the ground

I watch as no corrupt thing can stand,
For dynamite blows apart the foundation
That was constructed on unstable sand,
Instead of the Rock where it should’ve been.

The Bulldozer flattens the old remains
So that the new can be constructed;
My new heart can barely contain
The excitement, for it can be deducted,

When God’s mighty and perfect plan unfurls,
The old passes away – no one remembers it.
Therefore shed the old garment of the world,
And put on Jesus Christ in the Spirit!

No longer shall idols, sin, guilt
Evil, temptation and such control,
For the decrepit heart is now newly rebuilt
On the Cornerstone – He rules this soul!

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Revelation 21:5: And He that sat upon the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said unto me, “Write: for these words are true and faithful.”

Ephesians 4:21-24: If so be that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Ephesians 2:20: And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the Chief Corner Stone…

Golden Skies

Dutch Goes The Photo’s Tuesday Photo Challenge is Golden, and it reminded me of a sunset from a couple of months ago that I had the pleasure of viewing on our way home from town. 🙂

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. (Psalm 19:1)

I saw a lion’s head in this one:

But it wasn’t there long before it morphed into another shape – and apparently the bridge ices before the road does.  😅

I wanted to get photos without a lot of man-made structures in it, and somehow I timed it perfectly to not only showcase the golden sky and cloud formation, but also the cell phone tower. 😄 Oops.

I love the clouds in this one. 🙂

By this time, the “lion” had lost his “head.”

I love how the dark clouds are silhouetted against the golden sky!

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, we turned and saw this image:

It looked like a rabbit with very short ears on the left side of that cloud to me.

I tried to get a better shot, only to realize when I got home that the power lines got in my way at just the wrong moment:

Sorry for the large circles in a few of these photos; apparently the flash went off, and it bounced off of something on the windshield. 😜 Anyway, the view just got better and better:

Here is the last one I took before we got home:

I love the colors! Gold to pink to red. What a view! Sunsets can be so beautiful.  ❤