Friday Foto Friends...Amazing Transformation!

Here it is Friday again (but I am posting on Thursday night)...and sadly our dear friend Debbie from Breathing in Grace, who has been our "hostess with the mostest" for Friday Foto Friends for the past few years, has come to a point in her life where she really is not able to keep hosting this weekly gathering.  We totally understand, but will truly miss you, Debbie, and pray that God will continue to bless you with good health, peace, and joy in all that you do. Thank you for bringing us together...and now we hope someone else will step up to the plate and take this little weekly group on.  If you think you'd like to, please talk to Debbie (see link above)...and she can fill you in on the details.  I would offer to do it, but things are just to uncertain in my life right now...still trying to sell our house and possibly move...and I just don't feel like I can take on anything else right now.

That being said, I still love to post photos on Friday, because I find myself thinking about it during the week and saving some up to share with you on Friday. Sometimes I just can't wait and go ahead and share them earlier in the week, but "normally" I try to have something to share on Friday, and I look forward to seeing what everyone else has been up to all week as well. 

Here's a few of my pictures from the past few days:

 The hummingbird comes and goes to the feeder at my kitchen window all day long...

She sometimes sits still long enough for me to get a good picture:

We've been seeing the deer again in the evenings...these are just two of the usual 6-8 deer that are out there:

I got a new flag for my front porch this past week....I love the little chickadees and the pretty church bird house...

The Swallow Tailed Kites are still out there perching in the trees in the early mornings, and gliding around most of the day:

 Here are two of them in trees near each other.

This lizard was climbing up our window on the sun porch...he has his eye on the violets inside the window...

 The little green apples are growing bigger every day!!!

I apologize that I haven't been around much lately to visit you all, as you are probably aware that my brother passed away earlier this week after a long battle with leukemia.  Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts expressed on my last post regarding this. I do appreciate each and every one of you, and your sympathies and thoughtfulness mean more to me than you can imagine. 

On the morning of my brother's passing, I woke up to the phone ringing, with the call from my niece that he had passed during the night.  I kind of expected it, as I had awakened in the night around 4 a.m. and thought to myself that he was most likely already gone. My niece confirmed that he passed peacefully in his sleep around 3:00 a.m.  Even though I was very sad to see him go, I was relieved for his sake, as he truly was suffering, and he was ready to depart from this world.  I am so very thankful that I made that emergency trip up last weekend to see him one last time before he passed. We had such a good visit and he was so happy to have us there with him. God was so good to grant us that special time together. 

And so, on that morning after receiving the call, I took a little walk to the neighborhood pond just to spend a few moments alone with the Lord and feel close to Him and to my brother's spirit. I don't mean that in a weird way...please don't misunderstand me...but I just needed to feel that sense of God's Presence along with the comfort that my brother was truly with the Lord at that moment. There were no astounding revelations, but this is what I did see that made me smile:


This dragonfly doing handstands on the tip of a fishing rod...

I especially liked this because my brother loved fishing...

 Don't you love the way the sunlight is shining through these translucent wings?

This just really struck me as something special, but I didn't fully understand why, until I looked up more information about dragonflies and their significance.  Now please don't misunderstand this either...I am not a person who spiritualizes animals, etc., but it seems as though often when there has been a death in our family, God has given me a special gift of comfort through one of His creatures. 

Let me share with you one quote from an article that I read entitled 'What Does a Dragonfly Symbolize?"  I found this very interesting:

"When the dragonfly larvae, or nymphs as they are called, are ready, they shed their casing and the graceful adult insect emerges. As much as this represents change, it can also be taken as a symbol of death, when the soul leaves the body. Also that the soul, after leaving the body, resides in a different realm, can be likened to the fact that the life of the dragonfly is also spent in two "realms". While the larval stage of the insect that is spent underwater, can be likened to life on earth, the emerging of the adult insect that has wings and is airborne, can be compared to the soul that is free from the body."

Wow! I had no idea...but what a powerful symbol of the new state of my brother's "life"...as his soul left his earthly body, he is now set free from that body and at that moment was "airborne" and bound for heaven, and new life everlasting.

Also, a quote from this same article,

"In Native American legends, the dragonfly is a symbol of resurrection, and renewal after hardship. "

How marvelous! My brother had just gone through a horrible time in the past year...suffering greatly through many months of treatments, constant traveling back and forth to the clinic where he had to undergo chemo and other painful and difficult procedures, and definite hardship on his body and his life in general. And now, on this very morning, he was enjoying a definite resurrection and renewal...a new life...a resurrection from the painful, suffering dead body into life everlasting in heaven!

Jesus said to Martha after the death of her brother Lazarus (see John 11:1-44) in verse 25:

"I am the resurrection and the life.  

He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live."

My brother was not what one would consider a deeply religious person, but he definitely believed in Christ as His Lord and Savior...I know, because I asked him.  I already knew it, but just wanted to confirm it...for his own sake as well as my own heart's comfort.  And he was looking forward to heaven, and the rest and peace that would bring.  And this little dragonfly standing on his head on the tip of the fishing rod was a sweet little extra confirmation to me.

Click here for another interesting article about the dragonfly, entitled "God's Dragonfly".  I didn't know there was so much symbolism and interesting information about dragonflies out there...and now when I see a dragonfly, I know I will think about my brother and rejoice that he is free from his earthly body of death, and rejoicing in the amazing transformation and beautiful new heavenly body, where no sickness or death or pain will ever corrupt again.  Praise God!

Have a blessed weekend my friends.  Go take some pictures of something special today! God may have things to tell you in those "pictures".