Random Thoughts on a Walk

I woke up with a headache this morning. My daughter tells me to drink more water. Huh, wonder where she’d gotten that idea. After a simple lunch of canned wild rice soup, my body told me, “rest.” After a nap, for the second time today I woke up with a headache. I wanted to go walk. It’s been lightly sprinkling out, but seemed to have stopped. Discouraged when temptation-to-skip-exercise tried to tell me, “nah, you’ll get wet.”—I’m thankful I listened to my husband who said, “Go anyway, it’s perfect for a walk, even if you get a little wet.” My headache went away during my walk! A sentence from my son comes to mind, “We never fail by communicating and counseling too much, the problems come when there is a lack of both.” It is coincidental that I developed a blog this week on my iMac on the very day that Steve Jobs died. Curiosity had gotten the best of me and I’d started @FreshRetroGal on Twitter as well, not being sure how involved I’ll get into either. I think about the blessing of technology…as a creative, Christian, family person and professional. This week my sister sent a packet of papers gathered and divided to complete the handling of Mom’s items of her earthly existence. What a blessing she and my father were, as I visualize their marriage certificate of 1950 and all the little notes and tidbits of that package. Even though I miss them, I am filled with joy to think of them now and forever together with our LORD. I’m thankful for other individuals—friends and church family—as I realize how they enrich my life and each member of my family’s life. Still walking…look at the river, it is beautiful. The ripening soybean field is yellow. The green field of a different crop behind it makes a gorgeous contrast. There is an old gray, galvanized tin shed sheltering big square bales. An antique orange farm truck is parked on the field road. Beyond that is a grove of trees beside the winding river. They are mostly green with a few fall colors emerging. Above the tree line is a cloudy sky with a soft texture of richly saturated colors. Thank you LORD, for creating this landscape for me to enjoy. Thank you for the sprinkling rain, nourishing your plants for the farmers whom you give the capability to produce the ingredients of the foods that sustain me. I’m home. Tonight I decide to read aloud to my family the Bible verses of today’s Portals of Prayer devotion after dinner. It’s a habit I’d neglected for a while, but it’s time to take it up again.