Before the Cold Comes

"The forecast is for just twelve degrees by Saturday night," our pastor's wife told me. So I am getting outside all I can these warm, sunny November days, soaking up the Vitamin D and the warmth and the last golden leaves of autumn. 

South Dakota will be barren for the next five or six months. I have to store up sunshine and flowers.

The zinnias that bloomed for months are long gone and brown. But their memory remains in my heart.

In fact, a few flowers were still bravely blooming again last week as I strolled through Hannah's flower garden, looking for a few stray blooms to share at the care center. How the ladies there do love to receive a few fresh flowers in the vases I left!

As Crystal was waiting for whoever she was driving from the care center at her job yesterday, one of the ladies met Crystal in the hall and was so glad to see her.

"I lost a relative this week," the lady explained, saying she was looking for a way to get to Kyle, SD. Then, "Will you pray for me?"

And Crystal was happy to do so--a moment like a summer butterfly landing on a pink zinnia.

I go outside to soak up sunshine because it's good for me to do when I've been somewhat inundated with tragic news.

No fewer than three strong men collapsing and not being able to be revived--

an old acquaintance, Ethan Crouch in Indiana;

another Facebook acquaintance, Ricky Hoff of Hobe Sound, FL;

and the adopted Kenyan son of my blogger friend and Mennonite pastor's wife, Dorcas Smucker, in Oregon.

Her son Steven was only thirty-one, a strong young man, an EMT and volunteer fireman. 

Sunday morning, after a couple days of illness, he suddenly collapsed and was gone. I plan to watch the livestreamed funeral service Friday. 

Three men collapsing within a week and a half. 

And then my sister-in-law Anita has been keeping me updated about Naomi, one of the orphan girls she and Elon and family helped care for in Mongolia, who was in a terrible accident and is hanging between life and death. I pray for her peace with God, for His mercy and salvation.

And our friend Elaine Bump texts me that she had to shelter in place yesterday when the UPS plane exploded at the Louisville, KY, airport only a few miles from their home, with eleven fatalities.

It's why I go outside into the sunshine.

It's why I continually turn to God and try to remember to soak in His love.

Behind every dark cloud shines the smiling face of Jesus. 

And before the cold, we are allowed to gather the last blooms of summer and revel in the crackly, golden leaves still clinging to the tree.