Blanketed

Note: The following is an edited version of a fiction story I wrote on February 20, 2025, in 10 minutes, using the one-word prompt ("blanket") I was given.

The photo was taken in 2005 at Montecito Lodge in the Giant Sequoia National Forest in California. Although the details in the photo don't align with every detail in the story, I'm posting it anyway because it's a photo I enjoy seeing again and again.

Fluffy snowflakes float effortlessly toward the ground. As the hours pass, accumulated snow conceals still-brown grass and shrouds limbs of leafless trees. The drab winter canvas outside disappears, hidden under a blanket of pristine snow. 

The covering will melt away as soon as temperatures rise above freezing. The world will return to its ordinary-ness, the magic of freshly fallen snow gone until another day, perhaps even another year. And I will resume my hectic schedule.

But for one day, this day, the world has been made exceptionally beautiful. So white. So quiet. So still.

I am warm and cozy inside a climate-controlled house where a furnace purrs like a contented kitten. Decaf coffee brews and drops into the carafe from which I pour a cup of comforting warmth. I lounge in my jammies and feel no need to rush off to work or do anything other than relax.

I realize I’ve been given a perfect day to curl up on the sofa beside the fireplace and cover myself with the comfy throw my neighbor gave me for Christmas. Before I reach for a nearby book, I bow my head and say, “Thank You, Father, for this unexpected—and undeserved—day of pure bliss, a day You have created, a day You have provided for me. I am awed by how You cover me with Your love even more gently and completely than You’ve covered with snow this little part of the world I call home.”

His Sunset

I'd have missed seeing this awesome sight my Father created if I'd remained inside the house working away! This gorgeous scene reminded me of words I'd read this morning, so I added them to the photo. Enjoy! Give God praise!

A Kind Word

Happy Independence Day!

Devil's Tower in Wyoming
Quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809-1894, American physician, poet, professor, lecturer, author

The Path

Scotts Bluff National Monument, Nebraska

Through the Window

As Nanny (my 95-year-old mother-in-law) sat in her recliner and stared out the windows in her den, she said softly, “A window just helps people.”

“Yes, it does. We can watch what’s going on outside.”

From her “blue chair,” a blue recliner with a motorized lift under it, she could watch for the mail lady, watch her neighbor remove and then build a new, large deck (all by herself!), watch a young couple move out of their house across the street and a new family move in, watch people in the neighborhood take their daily walks along the sidewalks, watch school buses and other vehicles go by… Although she was no longer able to take daily strolls or work in her yard, she stayed “connected” to the outside world from her “blue chair,” which was her favorite place in the entire house.

I have a favorite place in my house, too: the sofa in the sunroom. Since I don’t have a street view, as Nanny does, I watch birds (and squirrels!) at the bird feeders on the deck. I frequently see deer grazing on clover. I watch fawns running in happy circles. I see tall pine trees and assorted hardwoods, which are beautiful in all seasons. But, if I go to a window on another side of my house, the view changes.

While reflecting on the different things that can be seen through a window, I came across this quote:

Each of us is looking out at life

from a different window in the same house.

Indeed, our life, as well as our environment, looks different for each of us, depending on what we see through the windows of our souls.

 

View from inside the Waterside Chapel in Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina

Worship the LORD!

Toiyabe National Forest in California, as viewed from Highway 89

Show Me the Way

Hinton, Alberta, Canada

My Source of Help

Bowman's Beach, Sanibel Island, Florida

A little sand between your toes

always takes away your woes.

~unknown

#####

Note: Although I do love going to the beach to relax, it isn't the sand that takes away my woes. It's this assurance found in God's Word, which I've paraphrased just a bit to help me realize this awesome truth applies to me--as well as to those to whom the words were originally addressed. 

My help comes from the LORD

Who made heaven and earth.

He will not allow my foot to slip;

He who keeps me will not slumber.

Based on Psalm 121:2,3

Declare!

The heavens declare the glory of God, 

and

the sky proclaims the work of His hands.

~David, in Psalm 19:1

Proclaim God's Glory!

Toledo (Ohio) Botanical Garden

I will proclaim the name of the LORD:

how glorious is our God!

He is the Rock; His work is perfect.

Everything He does is just and fair.

He is a faithful God who does no wrong;

how just and upright He is!

~Moses in Deuteronomy 32:3-4

God Knows the Way

J. Gaskill Photography