No - this picture wasn't taken in October or November. This picture was taken last Sunday after church. Leaves on the ground in August, you say? Yep - that's what happens when there is a DROUGHT. Apparently, these parts have experienced drought for a few years now with last year being the worst. This August is one of the driest on record in the last 60 years. They actually pray for rain at church!

Today our prayers were answered...rain has falled steadily all day long. At times is was so heavy that you had to raise your voice a bit so the person next to you could hear. At other times, it was a gentle sprinkle - a respite for grocery shoppers taking their cart of Kroger goods to the car (like me!).

Like the leaves falling off the tree in August or the rain pouring all day long after so long without a drop, I'm reminded that I am not in control! If it were up to me, I would build a spreadsheet with charts and graphs and couple it with a computer program that would generate the times and seasons of all things to happen. I would email it to all the elements and post it on the blog. I know you're probably glad that I resigned from the universe caretakers position...

Stepping back from the universe perspective and taking to a human perspective - I feel the need to control things in my life. For awhile this works...but inevitably my hands tire of holding onto everything and something slips. I can't do it on my own. With God, it's in the letting go where true freedom and liberation can be found.

The author of Hebrew's tells us that Jesus upholds "all things by the word of his power". I love the Amplified version which reads, "upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power". He makes the rain fall when it needs to fall - He's in charge of every leaf on every tree, the cattle on 1000 hills and every hair on my head. Shhh....listen....that's the sound of me letting out a deep sigh of relief. God is in control...that doesn't mean that I sit as a passive bump on a log and let everything happen around me. It means that I get to participate with the Creator of the Universe as he "guides and propells" my life by His "mighty word of power".


I'm excited to find rest in the hands of the everlasting God...may you find your rest as well.

k