The Cracked Acorn: So COLD

 Well, the season is upon us when the winds are blowing warm and then cool.  The trees are trying to hold on to their leaves but are losing the battle.  Children are having a ball diving into raked piles of leaves.  You pause and think it might be nice to be young again.  Those wooly caterpillars are crawling out of cracks.  Old timers noted that if they were all dark, it meant a hard winter.  Brown caterpillars held the promise that we could put away the snow shovel until next year.  When I was a kid, most every winter was ice and lots of snow.

Helen Keller, born deaf and blind in 1932, wrote these comments. To many people, autumn brings a sad mood.  They think of the stripped tree, the stubble in the field, all the summer charms gone, empty nests clinging to the boughs, brown leaves swinging their last hour on the sharp breeze. Who is not grateful to the Creator for autumn’s rich display of hints of gold, crimson, purple, and the softer glints of the myriad ecstasies of ripe fruits and grains?… The glossy brown chestnut beloved of children,…the tingling odor of burned leaves scenting the sharpness of the afternoon air?

My childhood Kentucky winter was around a hot stove that was banked overnight.  We slept on feather beds with lots of covers.  It was winter days of long-handled underwear and lots of wool clothing for those long, deep, dark, and very cold days.

Yes, it was so cold that you could chip your tooth on soup; we chopped up the piano and only got two chords, the cows started giving ice cream, the dogs put jumper cables on the rabbits to get them running, the flame froze on candles, you couldn’t take the garbage out-it wouldn’t go, one day I came home from a walk without my shadow- it was frozen to the sidewalk, it was so cold that roosters were rushing into the kitchen to use the pressure cooker, grandpa’s teeth were chattering-in the glass, airplanes needed icebreakers to clear a path through the sky, I thought I had a stone rolling around in my boot-it was just one of my toes,(for you country western fans-Shania Twain covered her midriff), geese flew backward to stay warm, and our words froze in the air. If you wanted to hear what someone said, you had to grab a handful of sentences and take them in by the fire. (from-IT WAS SO COLD..)

I worked for seven years with a lady at the U.S. Geological Survey.  We managed credit card accounts.  I often received telephone calls asking me to verify certain merchant names and amounts.  She said this before hanging up the receiver, “I LOVE YOU.”  When I heard across the cubicles, someone mentioned that someone had said, “I LOVE YOU,” I instantly knew they had been talking to Barbara Heilemann. What would happen if all of us said this in our transactions and these three words froze till the spring thaw?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear for a few days or a week these important words that add a loving spiritual dimension to our lives?

I love you with the love of the Lord. I see in you the glory of my King; Please love me with the love of the Lord.  IT was all paid when He rose up from the grave. And He loves us all with the love of the Lord. (#703 lyrics- Songs of FAITH and PRAISE)