Summertime is still with us today with her blue skies and clear warm sunshine. My yard symphony is composed large buzzing bumblebee bassoonists and happy birdsong arias. It’s hot this afternoon. Mother Nature has planned a few cool nights next week and then maybe she’ll get back to her springtIme. I’m ready to start gardening and planting my flowers and vegetables.

Penelope and I have those catkins from the oak trees all over us. On our walks the seeds from the oak trees were falling down like rain. Already used the leaf blower once to clean the porch and it needs cleaning again. I sat with my hand over my coffee cup eating breakfast in the swing afraid one of the catkins would land in my coffee. I’ve been lazy all day, sitting in the swing, bird watching and pondering most of the day. The sky has remained sunny and blue, crammed full of all kinds of different shaped clouds.

I read where clouds were the dust of God’s feet. I’m on the lookout for his footprints now. I think we can look at the clouds and recognize the trials and tribulations and the joy and happiness of our lives. In the Book of Nahum 1:3 we read, “The Lord has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet.” When we face dark storms in our life life we realize God is in control. Sometimes his judgments may come in the form of a storm and these storms are a sign of God’s presence.

Sometimes I feel we have a dark cloud hanging over the earth now and a storm is brewing. Sometimes I think the world is going to hell in a hand-basket. The political world is a disaster. We can’t get along with each other. We can’t accept each other as we truly are. We fuss and we fight. We’re never satisfied with what we have. We shoot and kill each other because we can’t agree to disagree. We’re not thankful for our blessings. Plus, all these natural disasters showing we are not in control of our world should make us get on our knees in prayer, asking God to move the storm clouds and bring the sunshine back in peoples’ hearts. America needs to be healed. God never promised life would not be without hardship but he did say he would see us safely through to his rainbow. Psalm 34:19 states, “The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all.”

Read this quote in my devotional book last night — “A faithful friend is the medicine of life.” Ecclesiasticus 6:16, states, “A faithful friend is the medicine of life; and they that fear the Lord shall find him.” I have a faithful friend and her solace is such a gift. Being able to comfort someone in the throes of grief is a gift from God. 2 Corinthians 1:4 reads, “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”

God is a faithful friend, steadfast and strong, loyal and faithful. Nothing is too trivial to carry to God in prayer. All those little nagging thoughts and worries that keep you awake at night can be given to God in prayer and I can guarantee God will take those thoughts away and give you peace.

“It is in the deepest darkness of the starless midnight that men learn how to hold on to the hidden Hand most tightly and how that Hand holds them; that He sees where we do not and knows the way He takes; and though the way be to us a roundabout way, it is the right way.” — Arthur Tappan Pierson