Mountain Gifts

     Thank You, Lord.  Right at this moment, I gaze out over the valley as I sit on our porch in the mountains.  This is our first time up here since last summer--and our first family vacation this summer as well (golf tournaments TOTALLY do NOT count as vacation).  The peaceful songs of birds and crickets and the breezes blowing through the trees sound more magnificent than the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.  The serene beauty at every turn calms my frenzied, hurried heart, and all I can say is "Thank You, Lord."  To think, such peaceful, outstanding beauty exists every moment of every day--only I'm often too busy to glimpse it all around me.  But, boy, you just can't help but see it and feel it deep in your bones up here.  A humming bird just darted up to the feeder, and swallows dip and soar in the wide sky.  What a creation... what a Creator.
     The butterflies swarm our butterfly bushes right off the porch.  I had to take a picture of those as well:

Have remarkable butterflies are!  So delicate, so light and airy--they perform daily ballets, fluttering and lighting and lifting off again in their colorful costumes of yellow and bright blue and midnight black.  And all the while, Moses, our sweet old black lab, rests at my feet, contented just to smell the clean air and be wherever we are.
     God didn't have to make butterflies... or hummingbirds... or black labs, you know.  He could have just created a much more utilitarian world of black and white and gray, of necessities--no bells and whistles. But not our God, for He loves color.  He loves beauty.  He loves creating... and soaring and fluttering and resting and lumbering and crawling and running and dancing.  And most of all, His adores His own precious children, for He loves to bring us joy and laughter and wonder.  And awe.  How dare we fail to pause and gaze upon His creation and be filled with wonder and with awe!   He is our Almighty Creator God and there is none other.
     Time for me to get busy with dinner, but I had to cease striving for just a few moments and wonder at our Lord and His gifts upon gifts upon gifts in these blue hills.  His gifts are everywhere--in the mountains, at the beach, in the city, in the country.   The question is: will we pause to see and to name those gifts ("Count your blessings--name them one by one!")?   And then would we choose to put aside our agenda, our little resentments, our petty worries and disappointments and instead rejoice in the glorious Giver of all gifts?
      Thank You Lord.  Thank You for mountains and hummingbirds and butterflies and swallows and dogs and deer and families with which to share them.  You truly are amazing and wonderful and worthy of all our praise.  To God be the glory.