Page 237 began early and will likely end late with a whole lot of goodness in between.  I began the day extra early so I could get the building cleaned and ready to go before sunrise.  Being a Friday I knew it would be a late day getting the building cleaned and ready for Sunday, so I wanted to take a little time to relax in between the early and late shifts of work.  I took my kayak down to Potato Creek and was greeted by two baby deer when I first drove onto the property.  When I got to the boat ramp to put my kayak in, there was a horse roaming around the parking lot.  The ramp is somewhat near the horseman’s campground, so I suspect somebody’s horse got tired of the late night campfire talks. 🙂  There was also a bald eagle waiting for me so I took a few photos of him before unloading my kayak.  After parking my truck and putting the kayak on the water, I noticed a second bald eagle had shown up to join the first in watching the sunrise.

It was fun to just float and take pictures of the sunrise and the various wildlife that call the lake area home.  There was one area along the shore where the birds were very plentiful and flying about with a happy song.  Today’s photo is one of them as he posed for me as I floated by.  As the kayak floated into the brush hanging over the lake, I discovered why the birds were so  happy to be there — bugs!  The air was thick with flying insects in the brush and over the water so the birds were happy to have found an all-you-can-eat buffet.  After taking a few hundred photos, I loaded my kayak back on the truck and made my way back to work.

Late morning and early afternoon was spent finishing up the mowing.  Once the mowing was done, I headed out to a late lunch/early dinner to take a break before starting the evening cleaning and building prep.  After eating I went through some of the photos from the day and then cleaned one end of the building before sitting down to write today’s page.  Once the page is written, I will finish up the other end of the building before calling it a day and heading home.

As I reflect on the day, here are some thoughts/lessons that stand out to me:

• I am thankful to have some flexibility of time when I know I have work that needs done at both ends of the day.
• Being able to relax when needed helps to make a long day not seem so long.
• I never get tired of seeing wildlife in their natural habitat.
• Some things are such a surprise that I don’t even think about how much of a surprise it was until much later — I mean, really, an unattended horse roaming the parking lot?
• God wants me to trust Him to provide for me just as He provides for the birds of the air.
• I still enjoy mowing.  It is easy to see the work that was accomplished.
• Incorporating prayer into my cleaning routine helps the time to seem to pass much more quickly.

Page 236 began early with another morning that required a jacket to start the day.  The cool temperatures overnight have made for some very pleasant days recently — especially for late August.  I began the day with the usual prayer, cleaning, and building prep combination, then spent some time writing yesterday’s page.  I’m starting the writing of today’s page much earlier, so hopefully I can get back in the pattern of finishing the day with a written page instead of writing it the next morning.  I suppose it would help if I could figure out the rest I need and why what I get doesn’t seem to be enough.

I have two book projects rolling around in my mind, so once the building was ready for the day and the page was written, I turned my attention to the setup and outlining of these next projects.  One of them should be another 13 week volume in the “Devotions For Those Who Serve” series that I wrote last year.  The other project has started out to be another 31-day devotional journal, but I’m not certain that will be the format it ends up in.  The working title is “Here Am I: Pursuing a Sacred Calling in the Midst of Everyday Life”.  It will be a prayer-based devotional book, I’m just not sure if it will follow the 31-day format of my most recent writings.

By late morning the sky had gone from overcast to partly cloudy, so went outside to see if the grass was dry enough that I wanted to mow.  Today’s photo is part of what I found when I went out.  This young deer was standing along the edge of the woods keeping an eye out for unwanted visitors.  Between the sun and the breeze, the grass was mostly dry so I decided to start the mowing today to lessen what needs done tomorrow.  It was an interesting afternoon of mowing as this young deer was briefly joined by its mom and its twin.  I also spent some time observing a hawk that was watching me quite closely and then saw a fox at each end of the field I was mowing.  The hawks and deer are pretty regular visitors, but begin able to see the fox out is a much rarer treat.  When I finished mowing the large ball field, it was mid-afternoon and I decided that was enough mowing for the day so I put the mower away and prepared to call it a day.  As I sat in my office to shut down my computer, a hummingbird buzzed my window then went out to collect some nectar from the flowering brush.  I managed to capture a photo of it that is probably my favorite hummingbird photo I have taken so far.  With posting a hummingbird photo on yesterday’s page, I went with the deer photo for today’s page and put the hummingbird on Facebook. 🙂

As I left work, I headed to a late lunch then went home to relax a bit and ended up taking a nap again today.  This nap was shorter than previous days, so maybe I am finally getting used to the school year schedule or am kicking whatever bug has drained me of energy.

As I reflect on the day, here are some thoughts/lessons that stand out to me:

• Weather that I view as cool turning to pleasant, others may view as cold and uncomfortable and still others may see it as hot and unbearable.  Sometimes differing opinions are just that — different.
• Truth doesn’t change just because we respond to it differently than others.  We may like it or we may dislike it, but our likes and dislikes will never change what it is.
• God’s Word is truth.  
• For me, writing is easier when I listen and write without an agenda.
• Writing without an agenda isn’t the same as writing without a purpose.  I believe God always has a purpose for the writing that comes from my listening to Him.
• God wants us to always be alert as our enemy prowls about seeking to destroy us.
• It is easier to walk about in freedom when we are aware of the dangers surrounding us.
• We can walk in even greater freedom when we realize we have a protector that we can run to when the enemy closes in and tries to destroy us.

Page 235 was a usual day
as I went about my tasks in a usual way.
But that doesn’t mean there was nothing to learn
as I did my usual work for the paycheck I earn.

As I thought about the day, the little rhyme above came to mind so I decided that was a good way to begin this page.  The day began with the typical prayer, cleaning, building prep, and taking out trash combination that most weekdays begin with.  One result of writing these daily pages is that it helps my daily routines from becoming empty routines.  Even when I need to do the same things day after day, these pages remind me that there is more being done than just the routines.  Some of the most routine work we do can easily become the most effective work we do as we center those routines in prayer.  

These daily pages and my social media postings also help me to notice the larger routines of life.  Sometimes they serve as reminders that I’ve been in this situation before and God saw to it that I survived.  I don’t know if it is seasonal allergies, a seasonal change in my daily schedule, or simply the common ebb and flow of life; but I can look back at what I wrote a year ago and see that my days were a struggle to stay alert and that I was taking a nap each day after I made it home from work.  So when I find myself doing that same thing now, I can look back and see that whatever the cause, or causes, of the tiredness was, it didn’t last.  I eventually overcame, or adjusted, or simply moved on with life and the tiredness dissipated and until it struck again, I had pretty much forgotten that it had happened.

Once the building was ready for the day, most of my workday was spent doing some organizing and working on the content portion of the spiritual growth retreat concept I am putting together.  As I worked, I caught the movement of a hummingbird outside my office window.  There are a few hummingbirds that enjoy the flowering vines growing at the edge of the woods and I enjoy seeing them “in the wild” with no artificial feeders around to attract them.  With no feeder to drink from, these tiny birds are in constant motion and I’ve tried numerous times to photograph one with no luck until today.  Today’s photo is of the larger of the hummingbirds that stop by.  Not only does it keep in near-constant motion, it tends to blend in well with the leaves around it making it difficult to see and focus on them as they hover for a moment.

After work I stopped for a free birthday lunch courtesy of Wings Etc.  I’m on several email lists that provide birthday rewards, so it is good to enjoy the results of adding another year of life to my accomplishments. 🙂  At home I unwound with some computer games, then laid down and took a nap.  I began the nap early enough that I made it up in time to join my mom and dad for dinner to celebrate my dad’s birthday.  It was good to spend time with them and enjoy a meal together.  After dinner, we made our way home and I sat down at the computer to write the day’s page.  My mind was simply too tired to put the words together for the page, so I watched a little TV before shutting down the computer and heading to bed.  The page would wait until the next morning when my mind and body were refreshed.

As I reflect on the day, here are some thoughts/lessons that stand out to me:

• Usual doesn’t have to be pointless and routine doesn’t have to be meaningless. 
• God has lessons for us to learn all the time.  We need to be better at paying attention.
• If your routines seem too routine for your liking, try including a prayer focus with them.
• Looking back momentarily can remind us of God’s faithfulness as we walk forward with Him each day.
• Reminders of God’s faithfulness should serve to help our faith grow.
• Our movements as a Christian ought to help people notice God even when we feel small.
• Sometimes pausing to rest can help us be more effective in completing the work God has for us.

Page 234 was another day with an early start as I was awake and on my way to work before the sun came up.  It was a rainy start to the day and I was anxious to see if my most recent work on the leaks around the skylights had worked.  When I arrived at work the rain was still all outside with none of it leaking through the roof, so I went about my normal morning prayer, cleaning and building prep time.

Once the building was ready for the day, I took the time to write yesterday’s page then turned my attention to getting next week’s prayer guide formatted and scheduled to be published on my website and sent out via email.  As I scheduled it to post on the Impact Prayer Ministry website on Sunday, I noticed that this one will be the 235th weekly prayer guide that I have written and shared!  While there have been a few that I’ve reused over the years, most of them have been unique topics that come from my prayer time.  While it is tempting and easy for me to get caught up in reader and view numbers, in likes and shares and other such data, the 235 is probably the more meaningful number as it represents a faithfulness in doing a task God put before me.  What began in November of 2012 as a six week focus to help a congregation pray for one another, has turned into what I always pray is a weekly encouragement for people to continue to grow in a lifestyle of prayer.  

Once I had the prayer guide ready for Sunday, the rest of my morning was spent on small tasks in the building.  As I worked, I continued to pray about a retreat concept I am working on, and spent time with God examining its purpose and how He would want this tool to be used for His glory.  I eventually finished up my work day by looking at, and praying about, some retreat location possibilities.  It is easy for me to let fear dominate my life, one of the reasons why prayer ministry is such an integral part of who I am and what I do, and I suspect God is using this next aspect of ministry to increase my faith and to grow my trust in Him.

By mid-afternoon my workday was done so I got lunch on the way home with a plan to meet my mom and dad for dinner as it is dad’s birthday.  After working on some things at home, I began to not feel well so I stretched out on the couch to get some rest before dinner.  I didn’t pay attention to what time it was when I laid down, but I slept deeply enough that my hand stayed asleep long after the rest of me woke up.  I guess dinner with mom and dad will have to wait another day or two as my body simply said, “Enough!”  After dinner at home, I started to write today’s page but couldn’t stay focused very long so I set it aside and am finishing it the next morning.

As I didn’t take any new photos, today’s photo is one from Saturday night’s trip to Lake Michigan.  The setting was perfect.  The sun was dropping behind the Chicago skyline, boats were coming in and out of the harbor, and I was in a position to capture some beautiful moments of the sun appearing to melt into the horizon.  One big problem.  Sometime prior to this outing, I had changed my camera settings for a specific purpose but didn’t change them back to appropriate settings for a sunset.  While I like the content of many of the photos I took that evening, most of the photos are so grainy that I’m not satisfied with how they turned out.  Yes, there is no one to blame but myself.  And yes, they still have a beauty about them that some may enjoy.  But I know I could have done better.  I don’t have the skill, ability, or knowledge to make these better, but I do have the ability to learn from this incident and have better photos in the future if I consistently apply what I learn.

As I reflect on the day, here are some thoughts/lessons that stand out to me:

• A roof will likely not leak when the sun is shining.  It is the rains of life that put our covering to the test.
• Longevity at anything never happens until long after you begin.
• Looking back can help us see how far we’ve come, but if we look back for too long it can also distract us from seeing where we should be headed.
• The task you begin today may only be meant for today, but it may also be meant for the days ahead — the best plan is to do today’s task and see if God puts it before you again tomorrow.
• It is tempting to be impressed with statistics.  It is more useful to be impressed with  faithfulness.
• Most, if not all, of what God calls us to do will require that we trust Him.  God’s not as interested in teaching us a task as He is in helping us learn trust and faithfulness through the tasks He sets before us.
• Sometimes things don’t turn out as we expect or had hoped and sometimes it is even our fault.  In all times, but especially in those times, it is important to accurately evaluate and learn from what we did.
• God has the ability to make a beautiful masterpiece through our life even when we mess up.  He doesn’t just “photoshop” us, He transforms us into what He pictured to begin with.

With the pest control service at work scheduled for first thing this morning, page 233 began even earlier than usual.  It was still very dark as I drove into work and I couldn’t help but notice how much later the sun is coming up as we’ve progressed through summer.  I’ve looked at times and it seems to be only a few minutes difference each day, but add up enough of those minutes over the course of a month and it seems like all of a sudden the unnoticeable difference is very noticeable.  That same principle is true in much of our life.  Small steps taken faithfully every day will add up to be a great journey of faith.  Unfortunately, small lapses in our conduct also add up more quickly than we realize until we find ourselves in a huge mess and can’t figure out how we got here.  The way out of our life’s mess isn’t that complicated, but it’s not that easy either; we grasp tightly to the hand of God which has hold of us, and we step forward with Him each day until the life of mess we could never climb out of is far behind us.  But here’s an important truth — don’t let go of the hand that walked you out of your mess and don’t quit taking the steps forward; the path back to where you don’t want to be is not that far away but the path forward is the one to stay focused on.

As the pest control tech did his thing through the building I went about my morning routine of praying, cleaning, and building prep for the day.   By the time the school day began, I was ready to settle in with God to write the next prayer guide.  One of the verses in my daily reading from Psalms talked about being downcast — a condition far more common than most like to talk about or admit.  As I thought about that verse, and that feeling, the idea of a prayer guide focused on overcoming despair came to mind.  My initial search found no us of the word despair but I’m not sure what translation I was searching because I know verses that use it.  But rather than figure out why my search came up empty, I focused on the word downcast and, more importantly, on how God would lift us up from those feelings and set our feet on solid ground.

By early afternoon it had already been a long day so I headed home to fix some lunch and see what I could come up with to observe and photograph the eclipse.  I set up one camera on a time-lapse setting that would shot a frame every ten seconds and merge them into a video.  While it produced an interesting video of the sun appearing to fly through a steady stream of light cloud cover, the brightness of the sun just made it appear as the sun with no visible eclipse taking place.  With some filters and a longer range lens on another camera; I was, however, able to see and photograph the eclipse as it appeared in South Bend, Indiana.  We weren’t in the path of the total eclipse, so I didn’t end up with any of the cool “rings of fire” around the moon shots, but I was satisfied with my attempts at capturing what I could see.  Today’s photo is one of those photos as the moon worked its way across the path of the sun in a sky filled with a light cloud cover.  I found it interesting because if you didn’t know what was happening and what the photo is, it appears much like a night shot of a crescent moon.

I watched and photographed the eclipse until just past its peak, then headed inside to finish lunch and go through the photos I had taken.  We finished out the day with a family trip to The Chief for ice cream and a stop at Sam’s Club for groceries.  

As I reflect on the day, here are some thoughts/lessons that stand out to me:

• Things which seem small can make a huge difference over a shorter time period than most realize.
• The secret to progress isn’t found in how large your steps are, but that you keep stepping forward.
• Many problems that we face are not problems that we’ve fallen into, but rather problems that we’ve crawled into.  
• Getting out of our self-created problems will more often require small steps rather than giant leaps.
• God’s desire is to lift us out of our despair and set us on higher ground but we must be willing to take hold of the Hand that is holding onto us and accept the help that He provides.
• While people talk of the day becoming night, every photo I’ve seen of the total eclipse still shows light shining around the darkness of the moon.  The dark may diminish our ability to see the light, but it cannot extinguish it.
• If you’ve ever “danced in the light of the moon”, you have the sun to thank for being able to do that.  
• While Jesus calls His followers the “light of the world”, the only ability we have to light our world is when the Son is reflected through us.
• It’s almost impossible to go wrong when you finish a day with ice cream. 🙂

Page 232 was the 27th anniversary of my 27th birthday!  I was up early to write the previous day’s page, then I got cleaned up and headed to Sunday School and the morning worship gathering at church.  Our Sunday School class continued our effort in finishing our study of First Timothy.  It was a rather complicated topic and discussion, but through all of Paul’s writings, he continued to call people to live more Christ-like in whatever situation they were in.  I think Paul would still call each of us to be more Christ-like in our responses to one another and to our world.

After the Sunday School class, we had a great worship gathering where David continued a sermon series on what we believe as a church.  Today’s topic was “What We Believe About Salvation”.  Here’s the summary of what we believe, because it is what we believe the Bible teaches:

Salvation is . . . 

• By Grace.  The Bible is very clear that all people have sinned and that the wages, or penalty, for sin is death — death being an eternal separation from God.  Salvation is offered to us, not because we deserve it nor because we have earned it in some way, but as an undeserved gift through the mercy of God.  In God’s mercy, He daily withholds the punishment we deserve.  In His grace, we receive the forgiveness of sin through the full payment of our punishment by Jesus on the cross.
• Through Faith.  The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God because we must believe that He exists and rewards those who diligently seek Him.  Salvation comes through faith as we not only believe God exists and has paid our sin penalty, but we act on that belief as we look forward to an eternity with Him.  James says that faith without works is dead, so salvation through faith means we don’t earn our salvation by any amount of good deeds we may attempt, but that we do good works because we have been saved from the power of sin and selfishness.
• At Baptism.  While the enemy has worked hard to muddy up the waters (no pun intended), Peter was very clear following his message that brought conviction to many people on the day of Pentecost.  The Bible says that the people were “cut to the heart” and asked what they should do.  Peter’s response was straightforward, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.  And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  This promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off — for all whom the Lord our God will call.”  (Acts 2:38-39 NIV)  God’s instructions, and promises, were not just for those assembled that day, but for all who would seek salvation through Jesus and ask the question, “what shall we do?”.

Following the worship gathering, I had lunch with my family and then spent much of the afternoon relaxing and going through photos from Saturday evening.  As evening approached, we headed down to Potato Creek to enjoy the outdoors and see what we could photograph.  When we arrived, a bald eagle was perched in a tree near where we parked and even after we had photographed him to our hearts content and was hoping he would fly off so we could capture some photos of him in flight, he just sat there.  As we waited, and hoped he would fly, I shot some lake photos as the sun did its best to break through a blanket of clouds.  Today’s photo was one of those peaceful scenes that was part of a good finish to a birthday day.  I kept wanting to come up with a poem for my birthday but could only come up with what will serve as my “thoughts and lessons from the day”:

Today’s the anniversary
of the date of my birth.
And I often wonder
why I’m still on earth.
Some days I’m tired
and don’t have a clue.
And in my despair,
I sure wish I knew.

Then there are days,
God gives me a glimpse.
And life with this purpose
makes a little more sense.
Always be faithful
to God and His Word.
And share it with others
in deed and in word.

Page 231 was a quiet day.  After a late night, I slept in a little while before getting up to write the previous day’s page.  As I checked on Susan, she was having a quiet seizure and was mostly just lost.  I sat with her until she made her way back to being aware of her surroundings and where she was.  She was tired so she went back to sleep and I went back to my writing.  Once my writing was finished, I did some checking on some overnight trip options but it seemed everything was either over-priced, unavailable, or didn’t interest me — or at least didn’t interest me enough to pay the price.  That seems to be what it often comes down to when we say something is over-priced — it’s not worth that much to me.  There are many things that one person considers over-priced that another person considers a bargain.  Often our knowledge of everything that goes into the product or service influences our perception of value — either positively or negatively.  

Jesus says that the price of being His disciple is everything you have.  People tend to respond to that in a variety of ways.  Some simply say the price is too high, they’re not interested if that is what it would cost them to follow Jesus.  Many try to strike up a bargain, they try to see how little than can actually get by with and still call themselves a disciple of Jesus.  They will give something, but this idea of giving everything can’t really be what Jesus meant.  Besides, doesn’t Jesus say that whatever we lose for His sake will be restored many times over — why don’t I just skip the loss and restoration parts and keep what I already have?  Then there are those who get it.  They understand that the price is directly related to the cost.  The cost to Jesus is really beyond our comprehension.  Yes, we think we understand death — but the we’re quick to say, “But He came back to life!”.  The cost was more than simply death — it was death on a cross.  But even before it came to that, Jesus was paying for our ability to be in relationship with Him.  The Bible says that He emptied Himself and became a servant — a slave to mankind.  He gave up everything so that we could be restored.  And after He had given up everything, God lifted Him up and restored Him to His rightful place in heaven — just as He desires to lift us up and restore us unto Himself when we pay the “asking price” of everything.

After lunch, we headed out for a little family adventure.  We made a visit to the Hesston Steam Museum and went for a train ride behind one of their steam engines.  It is a fascinating place and always interesting to see the steam powered equipment in use.  The rest of the afternoon was spent along the shores of Lake Michigan.  After a drive along the waterfront, we stopped in Michigan City where we were greeted by a few butterflies enjoying a large butterfly bush.  We even saw a hummingbird join them for a time.  Butterflies often catch our attention because of their beauty and design, but it is so easy to forget that they don’t start life that way.  God says that when we are in Christ, we are a new creation.  The old is stripped away and gone, and He transforms us into the beautiful creation He has designed us to be.  The butterfly photos were followed by some time spent on the lighthouse pier capturing photos of the sunset as the sun dropped behind the Chicago skyline.

As I reflect on the day, here are some thoughts/lessons that stand out to me:

• Sometimes the best thing we can do for a person who is lost and wandering is to just sit with them and be a safe presence.
• The price we’re willing to pay for something generally reflects the value we give it.
• Through the price He paid, God demonstrated the value He places on us.
• Our willingness, or unwillingness, to give up everything to follow Jesus, says a lot about the value we place on being His disciple.
• God has both the desire and ability to transform the ugliness of our sinful life into something beautiful.
• Even as the sun sets to finish our day, it is rising to begin the day for someone else.

Page 230 was one of those days that went well, but seemed like it would never end.  As I began my workday, I was greeted by a deer grazing just outside my office window.  In the early morning twilight, it was difficult to get some clear photos unless she stood very still while I was taking them.  Most of the photos have a sharp focus of the body and a blur of the head, tail, or legs as she slowly went about her grazing.  Even when the conditions don’t make for great photos, I still love seeing the deer outside my office.  

Next up was the morning prayer, cleaning, and building prep.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe the daily cleaning and prep are important; but the most important part of the routine is the prayer that takes place during all of it.  Once the building was ready for the day, I did some follow-up to some of yesterday’s tasks before beginning my primary project for the morning — working on the baptistery heater and pump.  Getting to the pump and heater can be a chore all of its own.  Crawling, and working, under the stage in the auditorium made me think about perspective.  When I’ve preached from the stage during a church service, I’ve always wished it wasn’t quite so high.  I don’t like the feeling of being so far removed from an audience when I’m speaking and the stage definitely gives a feeling of separation.  It’s a big part of why we’ve gone to a smaller, shorter platform in front of the stage.  On the other hand, as I worked under the stage, I sure wished it was quite a bit taller!  There is not quite enough room to sit up fully and working crouched over most of the morning seems to become more difficult with each passing year.  Oh, and I don’t know if you caught it or not, but I’m in this limited space area working on both water and electricity — two things that ought to be kept separate as much as possible.  After crawling in and out of the work area a few times to get the right tools, I eventually managed to replace the heating element and clean out the pump to get everything operation again.  I ran it for a while and crawled back under periodically to check for leaks before closing up the area and heading out to lunch.  

During my lunch break I headed down to Potato Creek and enjoyed some time resting on the pier.  The water was a little choppy with not an osprey or eagle in sight.  I could hear the calls of the osprey echoing across the waters, but they didn’t seem to be very active where I was.  At one point I sat up from soaking in the sun and noticed a bird clinging to the side of a dead tree in the middle of a nearby cove.  It was far enough away that I thought it must be one of the larger woodpeckers so I grabbed my long-zoom camera to take a few photos.  When I zoomed in on it, I discovered the subject of today’s photo.  There was a small branch protruding from this dead tree and one of the young osprey was out surrounded by water where he had a perfect vantage point for an afternoon of fishing.  Once again, I thought about my lesson from earlier in the day about perspective.  There was my perspective, created by distance, that made me think this osprey was something other than what he really was.  There was also its perspective — the one that saw the value in being able to take view your entire surroundings and take note of what is useful and what is potentially dangerous.  How often is our opinion created from a distance and rather than “zoom in” and actually talk to those involved in a situation on a day to day basis, we conclude our perspective is accurate because it is the perspective we want to believe?  But more important even than “zooming in”, is to step back and seek God’s perspective — the one that has the view from above and can see all of our surroundings to know what is good for us and what is dangerous.

I did manage to catch one photo of a bald eagle soaring high overhead before I packed up my cameras and headed back to work.  My evening was spent going through the building to get it cleaned and ready for Sunday.  As I was nearing what I thought would be the end of my workday, I came across a puddle of water where it didn’t belong.  There was nothing obvious that would have caused the puddle of water to be on the floor, so I began tracking down where it might have come from.  It was along a wall, so my first check was the room on the other side of the wall.  Sure enough, I could hear it before I even got to the room — a water heater had sprung a leak.  It was already late, so I didn’t bother to investigate why it was leaking or where it was leaking from; I just shut the water off to it and began the process of mopping and cleaning up the mess.  I had just been in that room about a half hour earlier with no rushing water other than the filling of my mop bucket, so fortunately the water hadn’t spread too far.  As I worked on the mess and set out fans to aid the drying process; I thought not about the mess, but about how good it was that I was in the building when the water heater decided its time was up.  While I had a small mess to take care of, and will have some work to do with the water heater next week, it was nothing compared to the mess that would have existed had the leak begun an hour later after I would have left the building for the weekend.  While I got home later than I had hoped, the thought of what was avoided made me appreciate how small the amount of extra work needed actually was.

As I reflect on the day, here are some thoughts/lessons that stand out to me:

• Experiencing the beauty of creation up close may not mean the same thing to everyone, but for me it is part of God’s way of saying, “I see you and I love you!”
• God knows your “love language” and even if it is not through the wildlife, if you listen, He has a way of telling you, “I see you and I love you!”
• If you want to increase the value of what you perceive as mundane and routine tasks, incorporate prayer into the midst of them.
• What seems large when you are on top of it may not seem so large when you’re under it and what seems overwhelming when you are under it may not seem so impossible when God places you above it.
• Some situations in life require extra effort and caution because you are working with things that can be dangerous when combined or used incorrectly.  People can be that way too.
• Not everything is what it may appear to be from a distance.
• Making judgments from a distance can be dangerous because they are often wrong.
• God’s perspective is always worth looking for and finding.
• Some blessings don’t look a lot like blessings until you consider the alternatives would have been much worse.