Monday Monday! Praises and Gratefulness!

Jeremiah 32:17 

‘Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.

Last night I spent probably at least a half hour or more watching and waiting for the sun to set. After a very chilly start to our day (31 degrees F, with frost on the ground, which is very cold for us here in Florida!), and even though it was sunny and bright all day, it stayed quite chilly for most of the day. But by evening the wind had died down and it was actually quite pleasant outside.  I grabbed my cell phone (because it takes the best sunset pictures), and went outside to watch the beauty unfolding in the skies over Still Waters Pond. All the while as I was waiting, I paced back and forth along the shore of the pond, looking for the best angles to take the pictures, but also stopping to pause and praise the Lord for each and every beautiful change as it took place.  

I thought about so many things...the week we've just had...the fires in California with people that I know and love affected by them, but the praise that their home was spared was so amazing... 

and then there were things going on here in our own community of friends that had been challenging...one dear friend had a stroke on Tuesday night (she is our church pianist). and thanks to the Lord and the quick action of,  first, her husband calling 911 as soon as he noticed her face starting to droop, and the local ambulance drivers contacting the Stroke Center at Shands Hospital in Gainesville, who sent out a specially equipped ambulance for stroke victims to meet them half way (the hospital is almost an hour away from here), and the extremely quick action of the stroke trauma team examining and removing a blood clot from her brain within minutes of her arrival at the hospital! Yeah! That was a miracle!, And she was able to call me the next day from the hospital to tell me how good she felt and that she was ready to go home!  She did have to spend a couple of nights in the hospital, but now she is safely home and will only need some basic therapy for a while until she regains her strength. She is 81 years old, and has other pre-existing health concerns, but God definitely intervened on her behalf in this situation and I just want to praise the Lord for His mercy and grace and kindness.

I also thought about how wonderful our gathering of Blogging Sisters was on Saturday, and how great it was to be together with people that we normally just see here in cyber-space. But yes, we are all real flesh and blood people, all with unique talents and gifts and needs. Each one has her own special story to tell...and that's why we blog! For each one of us our "stories" have changed over the years as life events took place that none of us expected or wanted to happen...but life happens, and we grieved, adapted, and learned to move forward with whatever our "new normal" is after the unexpected happens. None of us has done that alone...we each one know that God has been with us all the way, or we probably wouldn't be here today to be able to talk about our life stories.  And we are each one thankful for this community of friends who have been so supportive and comforting throughout our personal ordeals.

I thought about my own sister,  who has been battling a very bad bout of bronchitis for the past almost two weeks, and she's still trying to get over it. Wonderfully, when I got back inside the house she called me to tell me how she was doing (as I had kept asking her on Facebook), and also to tell me that she finally received our Christmas gifts to her and her husband, thanks to my sister in law delivering them to her daughter and then her daughter delivered them to her! Whew! She was happy to have a little "Christmas party" at home to cheer her up, and I was so happy to hear from her and know that she's going to be fine...she just needs to get over this bug.  

There's other stuff...oh, our kids were all here after church and we had a delicious Pork Tenderloin dinner with baked potatoes and a salad. I didn't take any pictures, but you've seen us all before and you know what our food and table looks like, so just picture it! I am VERY thankful to have our kids and the grandpups here anytime. Scott came down after he got off work (he works very early in the morning to maintain a golf course, even when it was 31 degrees...probably colder where he was more than an hour north of us!) to do his laundry and visit and also had a few Christmas gifts waiting for him from his Aunt and Uncle, so we had a little "Christmas party" for him too.  Sometimes Christmas just goes on and on for a while, but that's quite okay with me...it's the Spirit of Christmas that continues even when the decorations are all put away and the calendar says it's practically the middle of January, but that joy and Spirit of God's love and love of family continues, Praise God!

So I'm writing all this as I am showing you pictures of the sunset that I was watching as it changed from moment to moment...each view getting better as the colors got richer and deeper and more glorious. I kept thinking I should go back inside the house, but it wasn't terribly cold, and I wanted to see it all the way to the end...plus in my mind I was thinking that the Sand Hill Cranes had not returned to their roosting place yet for the night, and so I was hoping they would show up before I had to go inside.

And my patience was rewarded by this amazing sight...here came the Sand Hill Cranes, flying over the treetops and preparing for their landing on Still Waters Pond:

AS they approached the water, their "landing gear dropped down"...

And they aimed for their landing site on the other side of the island...

And this was my last view of them as they landed on the water/marsh site...

And then all was calm and beautiful and the sun continued its descent and I went back inside, filled with awe and joy and thankfulness.  I praised God for His faithfulness to our family and friends...and rejoiced in the beauty of all that I had just been so privileged to witness. I truly am grateful for what God has provided, and don't take it for granted. Life can change so rapidly, as we have seen this past week for so many people. It has made me very, very grateful to God indeed.

Thank you for hanging in there with me to the end of this amazing sunset. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Jeremiah 32:17 

‘Ah, Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for You.