I married a firebug and raised two more.  All the camping we have done, I am sure, was just an excuse to build and sit around campfires, and since we moved to the country we have had a fire pit from the beginning.  Once the weather began to turn, we kept the hot dog and marshmallow industries in business almost single-handedly, sometimes with all the trimmings—chili, beans, slaw—other times with just a bag of chips on the side.  After the boys went away to college, any weekend they came home, they expected a hot dog roast at least once.  From October to April my grocery list always included those all-American sausages, “Nathan’s” hot dogs, of course.

Now that the boys are gone, Keith still likes to build a fire on cool nights.  Our partially wooded property always produces enough deadfall to keep the fires going, and even here in Florida, the weather is cool enough to make a fire pleasant, rotating yourself like a rotisserie, warming each side in turn. 

Keith will often throw a carefully collected and dried pile of Spanish moss on the flame.  At first the fire appears smothered, but the heat gradually burns through, producing thick billows of gray smoke that seem almost tactile, finally burning clear and shooting sparks and cinders up toward the sky.  We lean our heads on the lawn chair backs to see which will travel highest and glow longest before burning out in the cold blackness above the treetops.

Do you realize that is all an atheist believes life is? We are cinders in a bonfire.  Some of us simply dissolve in the fire.  Others rise on the updraft, some burning higher, larger, and longer than others, but burning out nonetheless, just like everyone else.  How can they survive believing this is all there is to it?  Some use that as an excuse to do whatever they want, regardless of who it hurts and the harm it causes.  Even then, as they grow older and realize the brevity of life, the pointlessness of it all takes its toll.  When a wicked man dies, his hope perishes; all he expected from his power comes to nothing, Prov 11:7.

But children of God know better. We are not just nameless cinders in the updraft of a brief blaze.  We have not only an eternal existence to look forward to, but a purpose here as well.  Very few of us will rise high enough and burn long enough for many to notice and fewer to remember, but we can all give warmth and light in a cold, dark world.  Maybe working so hard that we dissolve in the flame without ever rising above it is the better end.  How much warmth and light did you ever get out of a single spark anyway?

What are your plans for today?  Are you so busy you get tired just thinking about it?  And at what?  Is it something that will warm someone’s heart and light their way?  Even things that don’t seem likely can be made into an opportunity to do good.  If they cannot, maybe we should think twice about doing them.  We are all sparks in the fire, or else we are just trying to put it out.

You are the light of the world.  A city set on a hill cannot be hid.  Neither do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on the stand, and it shines unto all who are in the house.  Even so let your light shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven, Matt 5:14-16.

Dene Ward

I suppose it’s because of our age.  Or maybe it’s because Keith recently lost his mother, and it has only been two years since I lost my father. Between us we have only one parent left.  Suddenly, we are the ones at the top of the escalator.  No one stands between us and eternity and it is indeed sobering.  All things being equal, we will be next to step off on the upper floor.

Maybe that’s why we have spent a lot of time lately looking through old photographs.  What did we find?  Dogs and cats from puppy- and kitten-hood to grizzled muzzles and bent old bodies, baseball teams, science projects, birthday parties, and Christmas presents; old friends and their young children, who are now grown up like ours; school pictures of the boys, all the way to college graduation; even a few pictures of a couple of kids in 70s polyester, freshly married and far skinnier than I remember.  Occasionally we looked at a faded picture of a toddler and said, “Are you sure that isn’t Silas?  Or Judah?”  Those always made us smile.

We also found pictures of this place of ours from back when we first arrived.  A before and after picture probably wouldn’t do justice to the monumental amount of work we have done.  We have turned an old watermelon field into a homestead.  Sometimes I wonder what will happen thirty or forty years from now.  Will someone else enjoy my jasmine vines and eat my muscadines?  Will they exclaim over the profusion of volunteer black-eyed Susans and the heat-hearty crepe myrtles?  Will they build a better house up under the oak grove in the middle of the property, just west of the fire pit?  I used to dream of the time we could do that ourselves, but it will obviously never happen.

One thing that surprised us the most was the live oaks.  When you see something every day you don’t notice how much it grows.  I have always thought of those trees as huge, but now they are twice the size around they were 28 years ago, and many feet taller.  If I hadn’t looked at those pictures, I might never have noticed.

Sometimes we do that to our brethren.  We tar them with a brush based upon their behavior decades before and never give them any credit for improving.  Can there be anything more discouraging to a brother in Christ? 

Think today of your various brethren and how you would describe them to someone else.  What exactly are you basing that description on?  Something that happened yesterday, or something that happened twenty years ago?  Are you giving them any credit for growth?  “Judge righteous judgment,” Jesus reminded his disciples in John 7:24.  This poor judgment isn’t just a careless mistake of no consequence; it’s a matter of righteousness. 

Maybe today would be a good time to reassess our opinions of our brethren.  Throw out the old photographs and take a new one.  Maybe—just maybe—they will do the same for us.

He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous:  both of them alike are an abomination to Jehovah, Prov 17:15.

Dene Ward

We found this plot of land only because Keith drove down the highway one day and saw a sign pointing off to the east: 5 ACRES FOR SALE BY OWNER. When he stopped he could barely tell that a trail led off the highway, over a shallow rise and on into the woods beyond. Being in the market for a place to put our home, we followed it one day, driving carefully over a bumpy track and eventually onto a grassy downhill slope, hoping we would not bottom out in an unseen gopher hole or mushy spring. Half a mile later, we stood under some big old live oaks draped with Spanish moss, knee deep in grass and weeds, with an open field just over the pushed-up fence row. About a month later, this became home.

When you move onto unimproved land, you discover quickly the value of roads. Roads are built above the general lay of the land, usually ditched on the sides. A new neighbor, who has become a good friend, suggested that we have the septic tank man scrape down the fence row behind the house, which left a path several feet above the rest of the land. We did not use it, instead driving across the top of the property on the grass to the front door. The summer rains began shortly after we moved in, followed by a nearby hurricane, and after having another neighbor pull the car out of the mud with his tractor at least three times, we began using the raised fence row as our driveway. That is why to this day, you pull up to the back of the house instead of the front.

Another problem lay just a couple hundred feet off the highway—a low spot you never noticed until it rained four or five inches. Overnight the land around it drained and made a pond between us and the road. There was no way to go around because of the neighbor’s fences, and the low spot was a bowl that could not empty. For a couple of months in August and September, we parked by the highway, waded through the pond, and walked the rest of the half mile to the house.

Sundays were particularly interesting. We all dressed the top half of ourselves, then put on shorts, and carried towels. After walking to the offending body of water, we waded through slowly, careful not to splash mud on the Sunday clothes above our waists, then got into the car, dried off, and finished dressing. When we came home, we reversed the process. Returning from evening services was particularly thrilling, hoping nothing deadly swam by us in the knee deep water and using flashlights to make sure we didn’t step on any snakes as we trudged to the house in the dark, with buzzing mosquitoes for company.

Keith worked for years on that spot. An acquaintance did roofing and often had piles of old gravel that needed to be hauled off. Keith would stop by his work site in the evenings, load gravel into his pickup bed with a shovel he always had, bring it home and unload it before coming back to the house. There must be a good three feet of gravel beneath the dirt there now, for fifty feet along that low spot. Eventually he dug a ditch off to the side all the way to the highway, using nothing but a shovel, a two hundred foot long ditch, in places hip-deep, so the water would drain. Finally, we could count on getting through, regardless how much it rained. The people who have moved in have no idea how much they owe him.

I remember thinking, especially as I struggled to put on pantyhose in the front seat of the car, or as I fearfully followed the bouncing beam of a flashlight through the north Florida woods at night, that I had better not ever hear anyone else’s excuses for not assembling with their brethren.

But I also remember this—not a single time did we even see (or hear) a snake on those scary evenings. Before that, when we could drive through, we saw several, even rattlesnakes and cottonmouths, but nothing on any pedestrian return trip from evening services.

Not a single time did we have to make that half mile walk in the rain. Certainly it had rained beforehand or the pond would not have been there, and often it rained more after we returned home, but we never got wet on our walks. Yes, that was a trying time, but it could have been worse. God knew what we could handle and He expected us to do just that—handle it. In return, He took care of us and never allowed it to be more of a burden than we could overcome.

Too many times we view our troubles from the wrong side and fail to see God’s helping hand. Even when we think otherwise, He is there, guiding us and making things bearable. Sometimes we won’t realize that till long after the trial is over. Remember that the next time a difficulty arises. I guarantee that as long as you are faithful, God is too, and one of these days you will see that as clearly as through a newly cleaned window.

We have had many difficulties since then, but I find myself looking back on what now seems minor compared to our more recent problems. If we had not waded through the water, if we had not followed a flashlight through the woods, could we have made it through what came after? Probably not, and a wise Father knew that. I find myself thinking, God, can I please have another pond to wade through? But the days of puddles are past. Rivers lie ahead, and we know we can get across them now, in part because of a muddy pond twenty-five years ago.

Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have; for He has said, I will in no way fail you, nor in anyway forsake you. So with good courage we say, The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what shall man do to me? Heb 13:5,6.

Dene Ward

I’ve heard it all my life: you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Imagine my surprise to find out you can catch quite a few flies with vinegar after all.  
  
I read it in a cooking magazine. Most gnats are fruitflies. If you are having trouble with gnats in your kitchen, fill a small dish with vinegar, squeeze a drop of two of dishwashing liquid on it and set it out where you have the most gnats. What interests a fruitfly is the vinegars formed in the rotten fruit, and that bowl of vinegar spells “rotten fruit” to their little sensory receptors. Because of the surface tension on water, a fruitfly can land and not sink, but that drop of dishwashing liquid breaks the tension. They land and sink, drowning immediately. 
 
I put one of these dishes out one day and an hour later found 18 little black specks lying on the bottom, never to buzz in my house again. Now, every
summer, I have two or three custard cups of apple cider vinegar lying around my house, and far fewer gnats than ever before. 
 
One of the cups sits on the window sill next to the chair that overlooks the bird feeder. That bird feeder attracts more than its fair share of gnats in the summer too, and I have a suspicion that most of the gnats in the house sneak through the cracks around that window. The screen is gone so I can see the birds better and the double window is up a foot so I have a place for my coffee cup on the sill. That lack of triple protection means they can get in easier than anywhere else in the house except an open door. 
 
So the other afternoon I sat down to rest a bit after canning a bushel of tomatoes. Keith was emptying the residual garbage pails of  skins and seeds, and dumping the heavy pots of boiling water outside so the house wouldn’t heat up yet more from the steam. I had just replaced the vinegar in the dish a few minutes before. 
  
A gnat suddenly buzzed my face and I shooed it away. He came back, but
this time he headed straight for the window. “Aha!” I thought. If I just sat still I could see how it actually happened. It was a real life lesson. 
  
He had gotten “wind” of the vinegar somehow and flew over to check it out at a prudent distance of eight or ten inches, which is several thousand times the body length of a gnat I imagine, and was certainly safe. He flew away, but within a few seconds he was back. This time he flew a little closer, maybe  half the distance he had before. 
 
That happened several times with the gnat coming in closer and closer on each pass. Finally, he landed on the window sill a couple of inches from the custard cup. I could just imagine him sitting there tensed up and waiting for something to happen, then finally relaxing as he discovered that whatever danger he had imagined wasn’t there.  
  
He flew again, but not away. This time he hovered over the cup, doing figure eights two or three inches above the surface of the vinegar. Then he landed on the lip of the custard cup. At that point I imagine the fumes from the fresh vinegar were nearly intoxicating. All that rotten fruit right down there for the taking, and besides, he had never had trouble before landing on a piece of bruised, decaying fruit, and this one was obviously an apple, one of the best. 
 
So he flew yet again, circling closer and closer to the  surface. “Now,” he must have thought as he landed on what he was sure was a solid chunk of overripe Macintosh, or Jonathan, or Red Rome, and promptly sank into the vinegar. He didn’t even wiggle—it was over that fast, his drowning in what he thought was safe, in a place where nothing bad had ever happened to him before.  
  
It works this way for humans too, you know. What are you hovering over today? 
 
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes down smoothly: At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like an adder. Proverbs 23:31-32. 

Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse: He who keeps his soul shall be far from them, Proverbs 22:5. 

Dene Ward

I used to jog.  As my vision has decreased, my exercise regimen has changed as well.  The jog became a walk, then a walk with trekking poles as support, and now an indoor elliptical machine.  But I miss that outdoor time---six laps of a ½ mile plus each.  No, I did not get bored walking around in circles every day.  I have learned more about wildflowers, trees, and birds than ever before, and my dog and I have a game we play that I am positive she has made up rules for.  The walk is also an excellent time for prayer and meditation. 

About the only thing I did not like about the path was the occasional spider web, especially when I was surprised by a face full of one.  Like all predatory traps, they are practically invisible.  If I were a fly instead of a human, I would have been snared and eaten a long time ago.

One morning as I came east across the north end of the property, I passed through a shaft of sunlight shining on a web ahead of me, turning it into spun gold.  Just in time I was able to stop, grab a twig from the ground, and wipe the web out of my path.

Satan is never called a spider, but his traps are exactly like those spider webs.  They are invisible.  Unless you shine the light of God’s word on them, you will walk right into them.  They may even look attractive, like the beautifully intricate web I saw that day.  We must never forget that they are as deadly to us as a spider web is to a fly.

The opening of your word gives light;
            It gives understanding to the simple.
I opened wide my mouth and panted,
            For I longed for your commandments.
Turn unto me and have mercy on me,
            As you do to those who love your name.
Establish my footsteps in your word,
            And let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
Psalm 119:130-133

Dene Ward

When I was a city girl, nearly forty years ago, I was scared to death of snakes.  I still don’t like them.  The difference is I can tolerate a non-poisonous one on the property now, trusting they will pay their way with all the rodents they keep out of my house; and when a poisonous one comes along I don’t freeze or run around in circles, screaming in hysteria--I just dispose of the thing.

You know the best way to kill a snake?  Well, it may not actually be the best way, but the city girl in me thinks it’s perfect—a shotgun full of number one shot.  For those of you who are still city folks, that’s a load for large animals, like deer.  We had a rattler once when Keith was at work, and even though I kept from freezing or panicking to the point of uselessness, I still forgot to unload the larger shot and replace it with number four, a load for smaller animals.  That means when I shot that snake with that huge shot, I blew it to smithereens.  As I said, I was extremely satisfied.

Well—mostly satisfied.  The thing kept right on writhing.  Yes, I know all about their reflexes and that they thrash about after death.  But that thing was flexing and re-flexing entirely too much to suit me.  So I got the .22 pistol and put a few more shots in it.  Then, I was satisfied.  When I picked the thing up with the tines of the rake to throw it into the burn barrel, it hung in chunks connected only with a few strings of skin—and it didn’t wiggle at all.  Best looking rattlesnake I ever saw.  The boys can make fun of me all they want, and laugh about it as they have for the past twenty-something years, but that snake was dead and there was no question about it.

Some of us don’t make sure the snake is dead.  In fact, we not only leave it writhing, we put it somewhere for safe keeping just in case it isn’t dead after all.  That’s how we treat repentance.  I know I shouldn’t be indulging, so let me put it up on the shelf instead of down here on the counter top where I can see it every day.  No!  Let’s get it out of the house altogether!  Whatever it is.

It doesn’t have to be a huge sin of the flesh.  It doesn’t have to be a bottle of booze or a stack of pornography.  Sometimes it’s a gossip-fest.  I know that my friend always dishes the dirt, but I still make plans to see her every week.  If for some reason I must see her, then I go with no plan for how to avoid the sin, and yesiree, it pops up and, I just couldn’t help it, Lord.  You know how she talks—and how I listen. 

Whatever it is, God expects me to kill that snake and make sure it’s dead.  Another one may come my way, but there is really no good reason for the same one to be making an appearance over and over.  If it does, I didn’t use the buckshot--I just shot a BB and missed.

Don’t cuddle up to a rattlesnake.  Kill the thing, and make sure it’s dead.

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Romans 13:11-14

Dene Ward

 For twenty-two years on this rural five acres we didn’t have a carport.  For over two decades our vehicles were at the mercy of sub-tropical sun, thunder and lightning, hail, hurricanes, and once even an inch of snow.  Not once were the cars or trucks we owned damaged during that time.

Seven years ago we had a slab poured and a carport erected.  “Whew!” we sighed with relief.  “Now we’re safe.”

The next summer we were expecting guests and since the forecast called for a few showers, we moved the car out so the children would have a dry place to play.  Everyone left and we went inside to clean up.  When we came back outside to move the car back into the carport, a tree limb had fallen and put a dent in the trunk—a big one, and knocked off a half dollar size chunk of paint too.  All those years we were concerned and careful, nothing happened.  As soon as we thought we were safe, we weren’t.

One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless, Proverbs 14:16.  How careful are you out there in the world?  Do you heed the warnings about evil companions corrupting good morals, and the Devil as a roaring lion hunting his prey (1 Cor 15:53; 1 Pet 5:9)?  Or are you so confident in your own righteousness that you are careless, moving away from the safety of the “carport?”

How many times has a parent sent his child out with all the usual cautions only to have that child sigh and roll his eyes and say something like, “Yes, yes, I know,” shaking his head as he goes out the door?  I don’t care how well your life has gone until now, how safe and smart you think you are, one bad decision can ruin everything for a lifetime.  Keep it under the carport!

How many times has a happily married man, supremely confident of his self-control, seen someone attractive, flirted a little “just for fun,” and wound up doing exactly what he never thought he ever would?  No matter how strong you think you are, don’t dally with the Devil—keep it under the carport!

How many times has a Christian stepped over the line “just this once,” “to see what I’m missing,” or “so I know what I’m up against,” meaning to return immediately to the fold, but never making that return trip because that little fling cost him his life?  Life isn’t certain—keep it under the carport!

You think I’m crazy don’t you, just because a limb fell on my car.  The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice, Prov 12:15.

And if coming from me isn’t good enough—and really, why should it be?—then how about God?  By the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil, Prov 16:6.  My flesh trembles for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgments, Psa 119:120.  Job said if he had done anything wrong, then let my shoulder blade fall from my shoulder, and let my arm be broken from its socket. For I was in terror of calamity from God, and I could not have faced his majesty. 31:22-23. If no one else can do it, then let God put the fear in you—keep it under the carport!

We wear seat belts every time because we never know when we will have an accident.  We get our inoculations because we never know when we might be exposed to a disease.  We have smoke alarms in our homes because we never know when a fire might break out.  We do all these things because it’s common sense.  So are the things God’s Word tells us about how to stay out of the clutches of sin and the Devil. 

You’d better believe that from now on, my car will stay under the carport!  How about your soul?

For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3

Dene Ward

Despite my trekking poles, I still have an occasional stumble as I walk Chloe around the property in the mornings.  Trees have a way of shedding limbs, especially in a brisk spring breeze, of pelting the ground with pine cones that roll beneath the feet, and showering the ground with slick leaves and needles.  All of those things hide holes and depressions that can turn an ankle.  I haven’t fallen in awhile, thanks to these sturdy fiberglass poles, but it’s still a little dangerous out there for someone with limited vision.

Most of those trees are ancient by human standards.  After watching a live oak we planted grow from a one foot “stick” to a fifteen foot sapling in 20 years, I know the ones that spread over our house, so large it would take four people to hold hands around, must be closing in on the century mark.  The wonderful thing about those trees, especially in this climate, is the shade.  With limbs stretching out thirty to forty feet, and dense foliage, the temperature beneath them can be ten to fifteen degrees cooler than in the sun. 

Trees, then, can be either a source of comfort or a hindrance.  On occasion, a tree has deposited a limb right in the middle of our driveway, and there are few places along its length where you can drive out of the road around a blockage.  The older the trees, in fact, the bigger the problem they can cause.  We pray constantly, especially in hurricane season, that one of those thousand pound limbs will not fall on the house.

As I become older, I realize the same is true of me.  The aged can be a source of strength, wisdom, and encouragement.  God surely intended that to be the case.  Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days, Job 12:12.  Unfortunately we can also be a source of discouragement and a hindrance to spiritual life.  Instead of gaining wisdom, some of us store up hurts and slights, many of them magnified through the years or even imagined.  Instead of learning the lessons of life, we become bitter.  Instead of maturing and reaching out to others, we continue, as we so often did when young, to demand attention.

On this rural property we have learned through the years which trees are most helpful and which are most damaging.  I step over far more pine limbs than oak, but even among those stately hardwoods are some we have learned to beware of.  A water oak will drop branches on your house or your car or your power lines, will in fact, be as likely as a pine tree to completely fall over. 

It may not seem fair, but if you are a young person, you must, as Jesus said, judge people by their fruits.  If you find yourself hearing nothing but the negative, you are taking shelter under the wrong tree. 

If you, like me, are heading toward that label “elderly,” you need to think about the shelter you offer the young.  I will be judged by “every idle word.”  Certainly around the young and impressionable, around those who may look to me for wisdom and advice, I must be careful not to cause them to stumble in their confidence by casting off branches of discouragement.  I must not block their pathway to spiritual growth with selfish resentment about the past.  I certainly must not squash their zeal with cynicism about either the world or their brethren.  If ever there is a time when our choice of words is crucial, it is old age, when the young look to us for advice and help.

We cannot help becoming old.  But we can all determine how we will act as one of those older “trees.”  What did Jesus say about branches that were unfruitful?  Do we really think he will do less to us if we fail in our purpose as the older, wiser heads?

O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come. Psalms 71:17-18.

Dene Ward

We live in a mobile society.  The first eleven years of our marriage we lived in five places, and we fully expected that to continue.  Neither of us dreamed that our children would go through the same school system for their entire thirteen years of schooling, and we would one day look around and say, “We’ve been here nearly thirty years now!”

It isn’t much by worldly standards, just five acres half a mile off a county road with a “manufactured home” on it.  But it isn’t square footage and high end building materials that make a home.  Would you like a tour?

Over to the west sits the doghouse Keith and the boys built together. It has housed six dogs and three cats now—you see, it is an original design, the cats had the second floor of this special pet condo.  A bright green swing hangs under the grape arbor.  Keith built the arbor and Lucas made the swing in high school shop class.  I make muscadine jelly with the grapes—Welch’s doesn’t even come close.  A live oak shades us from the afternoon sun-- Nathan fell out of it one Saturday while on the rope swing and broke his arm.  Daylilies bloom bright as a yellow sun in a bed I dig up every five or six years, thin out by giving the excess bulbs to friends, and then replant.

Off to the southwest a blueberry patch furnishes us with pies, cobblers, jam, muffins, and pancakes every May.  Beyond it a wooded acre includes four huge live oaks growing so close together that two little boys can barely fit between them.  But this “fort” gave them plenty of cover from wild Indians and assorted other bad guys.

The open field lies to the south, a place that has seen hundreds of football, basketball, and baseball games.  Croquet played on a green tabletop lawn?  Forget it.  We played “ultimate croquet” with slopes, molehills, armadillo holes, paper plate sized sycamore leaves, pine cones, twigs, and other assorted obstacles.  It was a whole lot more interesting.

Off to the southeast sit the old pigpen and the site of the old chicken pen, where the boys learned how to take care of dependent animals, and where the food we eat really comes from.  They also learned that there is a good reason to keep the pigpen way out to the southeast!

The garden has moved a few times as we not only rotate crops but entire plots as well. It was another source of learning—about sowing and reaping, about growth, about hard work, about sharing.  To the east the creek, which is actually a run, now sits dry as a bone because of the several years of drought, but when the boys were young it always had water in it and they took a dip every so often on a hot summer afternoon. 

Isn’t it odd how something that is not that valuable to anyone else can mean the world to you?  I think we have lost that in a society that no longer even furnishes much of a yard for children to play in.  I hope that does not make us lose the impact of some of the descriptions of Heaven, especially those that depict it as a re-creation of the Garden of Eden. 

I will one day have to leave this place, but that will be a difficult day.  I once had some roses, big beautiful bushes weighed down with pink and white blooms all summer.  But between the Storm of the Century in March ‘93, the several years of drought, and the natural bacteria in the ground in this area, they have gradually faded and died.

You know that old song, “Where the Roses Never Fade?”  One day I will have my “roses” again, and they will never die, and neither will we.  And we will never have to leave.

And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of the street;  and on this side of the river, and on that was the tree of life bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.  And there shall be no curse any more, and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be there, and his servants shall serve him and they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads.  And there shall be night no more and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun for the Lord God shall give them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.  Rev 22:1-5

Dene Ward

After an unseasonable two weeks in the month of January that left our azaleas and blueberries blooming, the live oak leaves falling by the bushel, and the air conditioner humming away instead of the woodstove, we finally had a night in the thirties and woke February 1 to frost on the ground—and on all those blooms.

Keith rose earlier than usual to start the sprinkler on the blueberries so when the sun hit them as it climbed behind the trees in the eastern woods, the frost would be washed off and the blooms left undamaged.  He also built a small fire in the fire pit beside them, pulled together from the remains of a fire we had enjoyed the night before with a cup of hot chocolate. 

Ever since we moved to this plot of ground we have had a fire pit for hot dog fires and marshmallow roasts.  Now with the boys gone, we still like to sit there on a cold night and talk.  We sit there in the mornings too, if coals remain, and some did that day, so, thanks to a considerate husband, I had a fire to warm me along with my second cup of coffee.

The world was waking up.  Wrens warbled loudly in the shrubs, in between perches on the suet cage.  The hawks cried out as they flew overhead, hunting breakfast.  A neighbor’s cow bawled so loudly I wondered if it needed milking or was just hungry.  Frosted off brown grass may be crunchy, but probably doesn’t offer much nourishment.

I watched the small fire and scratched Chloe’s furry head.  Suddenly the wood shifted, and the whole fire lowered a bit as the wood beneath completely lost its framework and became nothing but ashes.  Slowly and surely the rest began to burn and fall, and within a few minutes only a twig or two was left glimmering in the white debris beneath.

One morning recently, when we were sitting by a similar fire planning a camping trip, we suddenly realized that we could no longer plan “twenty years from now” with any reasonable expectation.  I suppose it hit me first when I did the math and thought, if Keith makes it twenty more years he will have outlived all of his grandparents and his father.  Twenty years will still have me five years short of my mother’s current age, and nearly forty years short of one of my grandmother’s.  Then I realized that I take after my other grandmother more and that would give me only fourteen more years.

I am not being morose.  After all, for a Christian, it means the reward is closer, but I think the day it hits you can suddenly change everything you say and do from then on.  It needs to hit you sooner rather than later—life is short, a breath, a wind, a shadow, the grass, the flowers—all of these things are mentioned in scores of places in the scriptures.

We are just like that small morning fire.  Only half the size of a normal campfire and built on the half burnt remains of the night before, it was gone in moments.  But it still accomplished two things. 

It provided some warmth in the early morning chill.  The thermometer next to the house said 37 that day, but Keith said the car thermometer, which was not next to a warm wall, registered between 29 and 33 as he drove to work.  In a nightgown, sweatshirt and denim jacket, I needed some warmth while I sat there.  So does the world.  It’s up to me to provide that warmth, which translates as comfort and compassion, to everyone I meet.  As Paul said in 2 Cor 1:3,4, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  God gives us spiritual life so we can give comfort to others, not just for our own joy.

The morning was still dim that day, and the fire provided me with the light to see around me.  God appeared as a pillar of cloud to lead the Israelites during the day.  What about travel after dark?  And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. Exodus 13:21-22.  Isn’t it in the dark of trial, indecision, and despair that we need guidance most?  And when do our neighbors need our help the most?  God means for us to be a light, a city set on a hill, bright enough for all to see even at a distance.

And then we gradually burn down and the light and the warmth disappear.  Or does it?  Don’t you still remember people who have helped you along the way?  Don’t you still recall their wise and comforting words and their kind deeds?  It only looks like the fire has died, for underneath those feathery white ashes lie smoldering coals that will still warm you and give you light.

That’s what God expects of this small morning fire we call our lives, and the fire that keeps on giving will be the one that springs to life again on that bright and glorious morning to come.

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom, Psa 90:12.

Dene Ward