FEBRUARY BLESSINGS

February seems to always end up being a blue kind of month for me. Gray skies and, more often than not, rain-rain-rain-rain. Occasionally, like today, we have a warm sunny day, but about the time my winter-stiff muscles begin to relax, it's back to the deep-freeze again. I am so ready for winter to be over.

In defiance of the February blahs -

Today, I am thankful for:

• God's Word, which continues to speak so precisely into the details of my life.
• Friends who pray for me and who challenge me to grow.
• Carol, my exercise buddy, sister pilgrim, and pseudo-therapist.
• Addie, my real therapist.
• Sunrise across the hay field. Beautiful every morning. Never gets old.
• A walk back on the farm. Creek bed music, bright-eyed deer, croaking ravens, curious calves, feathered jewels on sap-swollen twigs.
• Spring peepers - such a raucous chorus! Their singing is an instant mood lifter.
• The smell of damp earth.
• Turtles in the pond, lined up like hubcap buttons on the limbs of a fallen, half-submerged tulip poplar tree, thawing in the afternoon sunshine.

I am also thankful for...

First daffodils of the season!

Honeybees on the sweet-breath-of-spring!