1273. Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance. ~W. Clement Stone

I say to mankind, Be not curious about God.
For I, who am curious…, am not curious about God –
I hear and behold God in every object…
~Excerpted lines by Walt Whitman

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(wildflower / Julie Cook / 2016)
https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2016/10/

Look at this amazing tiny wildflower…it grows wild along the edge of the woods. Looking at it closely, it really is amazing isn’t it? The coloring…those tiny magenta like spots demurely dotting a milky center…along with those soft yellow streaks…offered by what seems to be the errant brush stroke of an artist’s paint. Those fine tiny little fuzzy hairs, surrounding each gentle and tender petal…ready and waiting to tickle the foot of any visiting bee…Absolutely amazing…Such attention to detail…A microcosm of beauty that sits for no one in particular, randomly along the edge of the woods…Except say for the birds, the deer, the coyotes, the armadillos…and chances are, it is only the bees that pay it any heed…A delightful detail to be marveled over…A sheer tiny portent of beauty…offered freely to any passerby to gleefully behold…Yet I do not see such a tiny marvel as mere happenstance. I do not find it to be some random mix of atoms that swirled together over the eons, then popped out as this flower…I do not look upon anything on this earth as mere happenstance…the oceans and all that they harbor and hold…the sky with it’s endless cosmic delights…the earth be it verdant growth or sandy dunes…Nothing has happened without the knowledge of the Creator…but there are many who would beg to differ. There are those who will cry foul over such thoughts…those who will fight ardently, tooth and nail, to wipe away any such notion…because for them, that’s all that such is…mere notions of the uneducated, the simple, the naive and the misinformed.

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ~John 1:17  ✝

**Julie Cook was kind enough to let me us part of one of her posts.

714. A few minutes ago, every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like in worship. ~John Muir

The little reed,
bending to the force of the wind,
soon stood upright again
when the storm had passed over.
~Aesop

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What was that? Did you see it? There it was again! Late in the day yesterday lightning began flashing high in the eastern sky. Soon we heard distant thunder grumbling west of us as the heavens grew ominously darker and darker. Overhead cold northerly air was colliding with warm southerly currents, and with that always comes the potential for dangerous storms and high winds that spawn tornados. Even the birds who are normally chattering and feeding at that time of day were becoming silent or absent from the yard. The cat inside as well sensed a mounting threat and anxiously headed for shelter under the bed. Before long the winds began picking up, heavy rain started to fall, the lights inside flickered off and on and off, and we scrambled to find candles. And then, wham bam, all hell broke loose! Winds in excess of 70 mph blasted the yard and pushed forcefully against the house testing the fortitude and flexibility of the mightiest of trees and the sturdiest of structures. At first all we could do was stand there staring out the window almost in disbelief at what we were witnessing, but when the warning siren went off, we headed for shelter in the hallway. So it goes sometimes in the spring here in Texas; the usual peaceful hush of twilight evolves into the worrisome madness of turbulent extremes. Fortunately this time around the tornado that was seen about 5 minutes from our house did not touch the ground, the winds that huffed and puffed did not blow our house down, the rains that rushed in brutal, sideways torrents did not wash us away, the power was only off until the next day around 10 AM and then again around 5 for a couple of hours instead of days on end as it has before, and it didn’t take us but about half a day to clear away all the leafy, twiggy, and branchy downed debris. As for all the rose petals that were blown off before their time, they laid a lovely, colorful layer over patches of the green grass. So thank you Lord for these and all your tender mercies.

Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, Lord, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. ~Psalm 25:4-6   ✝

**To all my readers: because of the storm and our subsequent power outages, I’m way behind now on reading yours posts and answering comments and/or emails.