The annual miracle returns

Spring emerges like a sleeping giant, as if the earth suddenly converts like vine ripened tomato...

A tiny fig leaf is extruded out from a dormant branch.

 

Relentless bulbs release their latent glory.

 

Fully rested, Nature comes on like a hungry lover. 

 

 And the story retells as wonderfully as before.

How God works...

It had been a frustrating week, last week, ... and I had another bad day... Monday. We tried to finish the Blinn Sculpture but ran into a couple of snares.. and best laid plans fell apart. I went to bed exhausted and disgusted. After my weekly prayer breakfast this morning at Cow Talk, I told the Lord how depressed I was about my progress in trying to finish up the job in Brenham and prayed for a miracle. The last piece to be installed was a misshapen mess and my fabricators have been extra busy, and getting the piece remade or fixed today was unlikely. It looked like rain anyway, so I just asked for patience. I walked into the shop and almost immediately Vastine Hughes took away my mess and performed a healing and had it better than ever in minutes...

Derrol Herzog my welder agreed to meet me in Brenham immediately, and we had the last piece attached by around 9:30! Thank you Lord! You had just been waiting for me to ask.

I guess I'm done. I always try to drag my wife out to the site to tell me whether I am through or not... sometimes I get a little punchdrunk. She took this picture, so that makes it official.

The Choice

The Choice, an original acrylic painting by Russell Cushman.


A year ... what is it?

To man 12 increments of time, approximately four weeks each. The measure of our age, our debts and our marriages.

To God, years are but endless waves in an infinite sea. Each has width and breath, and variations, each is full of life, yet each is only a link to the others. They are not important in themselves. A thousand years is a day, a day a thousand years.

We remember good years, bad years, we dread and yearn them as if they have substance. But our hopes and memories would be just as powerful without them. They are merely the pigeon holes we put our attitudes in.

What are years? What is a year?

Another chance to start over. Another chance for hope, love, and maybe even completion.

A year is a door. An opportunity in a sea of possiblities. For each of us, this coming year will offer an open door... for some adventure designed for us by the Almighty. If only we will step through it.

So for me, saying "Happy New Year" just doesn't cut it.

But for some a year is a game we have played before, and we know the rules.. the possiblities, the probable results. It only offers more of the same... it is merely the passing of time. A measure of our expectations and our disappointments. It is a door, but one that shuts out change, optimism or dreams.

This painting is called "The Choice." Every person gets to make whatever they will out of the door. Everyone, every year, closes the door ... or steps through it.

A long time ago, I resolved to be one of those who steps through the doors I find in my path. I did not want to miss out on a thing. I have no regrets. He has laid down a wonderful path, sometimes one little stepping stone at a time, to more opportunities than I could ever recognize, understand or appreciate. I made my choice.

May your choices in the coming year be blessed, and lead you to fulfillment and serenity, and a greater awareness of His hand in your next 12 increments of time. So Happy STEPPING THROUGH THE DOORS OF GOD-SENT OPPORTUNITIES!

Our greatest need.

If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. But since our greatest need was forgiveness, God sent us a Savior.

This was given to me, and I need to find out who said it!

The beautiful painting, one of my favorties, was done by Bouguereau.