Sat in the porch swing today pondering in the warm sun, a reward between chores I didn’t want to do. My bird feeders are full of cardinals, the males so handsome in their dark crimson robes and jet black bibs, the females pretty in their dusty brown dresses. The little purple finches are providing a yard symphony occasionally punctuated by a crow’s caw. There’s a cool breeze blowing bringing a hint of winter with it. Looking ahead on the weather app on my phone, I saw a ten percent chance of snow on December 11. Gonna stay up that night and watch for flakes. Stayed up last year on a one percent chance. Just the thought of a little snow flurry thrills me like a child.

Was thinking while I was sitting in the swing about how many things I take for granted. Actually, we take our life for granted. When we lay our heads down at night we’re not promised tomorrow. We wake and take for granted we have breath. We take for granted the sun will rise and the stars will be pinned in the sky at night. We take for granted all the blessings God has given us and forget to thank him in our prayers. Then something slaps us back and makes us realize how short life is and we realize we better get on board with being grateful for each day.

I’m still confused with the time change, but I finally remembered to watch the time today so I could sit in the swing and enjoy the pageantry of sunset. Father Sky left plenty of cloud sketches for Mother Nature to shade with her watercolors. She picked up her paint brushes and her palette full of wondrous colors — aquamarine, sapphire blue, apricot, champagne gold, cotton candy pink, blueberry purple, heliotrope — and painted a glorious rendering of the day’s demise, magnificent in its stratified colors.

The sun, dressed in a dazzling silver sequined gown, white gloves up to her elbows, wore a tiara of diamond rays on her head, beaming down across the painted horizon. As the sun slowly rolled down the evening’s horizon, she warmly took the hand of Father Sky, who was handsomely dressed in a formal tuxedo, black walking cane in one hand, top hat on his head. They made a handsome couple dragging the night’s darkness down with them. Father Sky kissed the sun goodnight and pinned the waning gibbous moon in the velvet black of the night sky and surrounded him with bejeweled stars. Another day ends as night begins.

Psalms 8:3-4: reads, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” I love the night sky with its moon and stars. Psalms 89 calls the moon “ the faithful witness in the sky.”

We all need to be a faithful witness to Christ. “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,” 1 Peter 3:15. When we have the word of God in our hearts, truly believing God has forgiven us of our sins and offers us eternal life, we are witnesses for God by our thoughts, words, and actions.

“Oh, Lord that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.” — William Shakespeare