Jason and I usually don't work on Friday. It's our favorite day of the week. This Friday all the kids are well. We had a fried oyster lunch in Bridge City... and a nap!  That hasn't been the only bright spot in our day. The sun presented itself right on time this morning and has shifted across the sky seldom interrupted by scattered dots of white clouds. I remarked today, "Life is good". 

Both birds and my windchimes are singing in agreement as I type. 

It's a spring kind of day in the middle of winter, but as we all know, cold days could easily be around the corner. I know winter; when branches outside the window are void of leaves or birdsong...or any kind of life. There are days when my soul feels just as bleak. I feel alone and as if worry is my closest companion. 

This time last February I'd lost three family members (two of them tragically) within a month. Hayden, our oldest, was recovering from a tough surgery.  We seemed to be surrounded by bad news. Some seasons are like that; like a walk in the wilderness. 

This past summer we traveled to Israel. Scripture I'd read about the wilderness came to mind as day after day we sat our feet on hard ground, much of it unlevel. Dust danced at our feet making its way inside our shoes, clinging to tired feet. 

I better understood the pilgrimage made by the Israelites. Though they were rescued from Egypt, fed manna and given protection, all these people of God could focus on were their seemingly barren surroundings. 

They hated the dry ground, but 

dry ground had been their salvation as they crossed the Red Sea; the waters not drowning them. 

They hated the wilderness. We do too. 

We forget that the wilderness is the place past enslavement and  just before the Promised Land. 

We also forget that we're not uncared for when all around us seems barren. 

By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Exodus 13:21

While in Israel I snapped this picture of a desert thistle. It's been one of my favorite pictures I took out of a thousand. It reminds me of the beauty in lackluster places and that life is found in the desert. 

Be thankful for sunny days, but don't despair the wilderness. God is up to something. 

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19