Where’d All that "Glorious Texas" Weather Go?

It always happens.

I get all my winter clothes sorted, cleaned and stored; my spring and summer clothes arranged and culled, and the weather changes from warm and balmy to chilly and damp. All that “glorious” Texas sunshine is playing hide and seek – quickly disappearing.

All my newly planted flowers look alarmingly defenseless as the squirrels are still burrowing for the remains of last years acorns. I shooed off one fat and furry fellow from the edge of the pot in which I hope the freesia will flourish.

And I am as thankful for our gas fireplace logs, as I was at Christmas a year ago.

“[S]he who sits by the fire, thankless for the fire, is just as if [s]he had no fire. Nothing is possessed save in appreciation, of which thankfulness is the indispensable ingredient.” (W.J. Cameron, an 19th century explorer and entrepreneur)

“. . . Nothing is possessed save in appreciation . . .”

My appreciation of my family’s safety is deepened by a recent photo of a young Japanese woman sitting, knees clasped, mourning, amidst the rubble of what may have been her home. So many Japanese parents lost their children, so many children, their parents – brothers gone, sisters, lost – the comfortable familiar is now a nightmare. Just as so many Haitians lost their families.

We live in days wherein the luxury of gratifying anger, nurturing resentment, or perpetuating misunderstandings is prohibitively expensive. The cosmos is too changeable – and life is too short to abuse the relationships God has established.

Some aids so you may more fully appreciate the folks around you:

A patient man has great understanding,
but a quick-tempered man displays folly.
A heart at peace gives life to the body,
but envy rots the bones. (Proverbs 14:29-30)

A man's wisdom gives him patience;
it is to his glory to overlook an offense. (Proverbs 19:11)

Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit,
for anger resides in the lap of fools. (Ecclesiastes 7:9)

"In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. (Ephesians 4:26-27)