Old Man Winter is on the way. I can feel his presence in the cold breeze this afternoon. The sky is beginning to get purples in its white aqua cloud cover gearing up for a heavy rain tonight. Old Man Winter is blowing his frosty breath over my little slice of heaven. He’s gonna huff and puff and lower the temperature till he gets the temperature down to thirteen degrees on Monday night. He’s enlisting Jack Frost for some mischief with freezing rain and snow flurries. My steam boiler furnace, Bertha, is getting excited about her coming gas guzzling days. I’m grateful to have her. If the power goes out Penelope and I will sit around the gas logs in the living room.

Saw a sunshine yellow dandelion worshipping the sun this morning, pertly peaking out from a brown leaf patterned quilt, braving the cold to open her petals to pray. Immediately thought of a winter quote I had read. “An old man in love is like a flower in winter,” Portuguese Proverb. Perhaps Old Man Winter is enamored with Mother Nature and she, feeling the same, leaves a dandelion of her love for him to find. Old Man Winter might have some competition from the moon. I read today, “The sun loves the moon so much that she dies every night to let him breathe, and in return, he reflects her love,” Jeffry Fry.

“The Sun is the giver of life.” — Ramses II

Anthony Carracino writes, and my most favorite, “Sometimes I think of the sun and the moon as lovers who rarely meet, always chaste and almost always miss one another, but once in a while they do catch up, and they kiss, and the world stares in awe of their eclipse.” An old Japanese legend says the sun and moon fell in love but because they had opposite schedules God created the eclipse so they could meet, the eclipse a symbol that no love is impossible.

Father Sky and the sun had a late afternoon sunset tryst, a romantic rendezvous as the sun gloriously rolled down a hidden horizon. Father Sky chastely kissed the sun goodnight in front of Mother Nature and went to tug the moon and stars from their thick warm purple cloud quilts. Mother Nature winked at Father Sky as she put her watercolor brushes back in their Mason jars. She painted the sunset for God’s eyes only tonight.

Matshona Dhliwayo wrote, “The sun is God’s candle.” God created the sun as a divine light to illuminate the world, evoking a sense of his warmth and presence. Just think of God blowing out the sun’s flame each day through a beautiful watercolor painting from Mother Nature’s paint brushes. His loving breath waking the darkness of night, illuminating the moon, placing diamonds on the stars. Scripture in Genesis tells us, “And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.’”

God uses our own conscience as a light to read our hearts. Proverbs 20:27 states, “The Spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts.” The “spirit of a man,” our conscience, gives God a lamp to guide us spiritually and morally. We can hide our thoughts and motives from others but God enables us to see right and wrong, guiding our hearts through the light of his wisdom.

“See the sun! God’s crest upon His azure shield, the Heavens.” — Philip James Bailey