another one of those sappy-what-I've-been-doing posts...

I witnessed the simple beauty of the early morning sunshine in window shapes on the wall.

 

I allowed my height to give me a false sense of confidence.  Tried to scale the fence at the school by using an old telephone pole as a handgrip.  It was one sure leap, a slip of the foot, a slip of the hands and sooner than I could have expected was flat on my back with my head cushioned by some rocks…I spent the next fifteen to twenty minutes with my pocket knife (and very disgusted yet mesmerized students) as I tried to dig a large piece of old telephone pole out of my finger.  So much for freesbie tag being a gentle game.

 

I corrected a student in anger (not the righteous kind).  God didn’t waste any time in telling me.  Had the privilege of tasting my own feet.

 

I climbed part way up a small mountain, all the way up and down pulling ticks off me, and sat on a small sandstone cliff and just took in the lovely green fields, the winding creek and the far off plateaus in the late afternoon sun. 

 

Stood in front of a very photogenic dead tree surrounded by four, broken down walls of an old graveyard with one headstone, slightly leaning to one side and weather beaten as though all the years had taken their toll and it found standing upright a bit too troublesome.  End date, 1915.

 

Moved cattle twice on a mare named, Lala.  It is hard to feel “John Wayne” while sitting an English saddle that’s been on a diet, on a mare named Lala, whose boyfriend and constant worry is an old gelding named, Fred…had a fantastic time until I tried walking the next day.

 

Got scared.

 

Learned more about God and subsequently more of my inadequacies.  God answered a series of prayers in the mundane, monotony of life…just because He can and His thoughts toward me are precious.

 

I agreed to preach with about ten minutes notice; used a story from II Chronicles and a few hastily remembered Scriptures from the New Testament.  Somehow I think I was the most convicted listener there.  Fortunately, God didn’t let me get in the way of what He had planned.

 

I laughed until I cried…Reader’s Digest job application montage.

 

I made biscuits and gravy for everyone on a Saturday morning.

 

Baked a chocolate birthday cake, much to the amusement of Michelle and Joreth who were helping me translate the recipe from Afrikaans…made a rather large-ish mess.

 

Saw deep hurt through tears in a student’s eyes…nearly cried…this is a new kind of pain.

 

Witnessed another in a long line of breath-taking sunsets.  The feeling I had can only be described as the closest to “peace” on this earth.

 

I tried to write a sonnet, tried.

Witnessed the death of a star.

Etc…