The Cracked Acorn: The Cold

The season is here, the winds are blowing warm and then cool. The trees have a few leaves but are losing the battle. Children are having a ball diving into already 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 that 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 almost every winter was ice and lots of snow, my childhood was around a hot stove that was banked overnight. We slept on feather beds with lots of covers. It was days of long-handled underwear and lots of wool clothing for those long deep dark and chilly days.

Helen Keller, born deaf and blind,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?

From: IT WAS SO COLD THAT: you could chip your tooth on soup, we chopped up the piano and only got two chords, the cows starting 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.

What would happen if all of us said this in our transactions (I love you!) 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, And I love you with the love of the Lord. Please love me with the love of the Lord. IF you want to do God’s will, then the need you must fulfill, Is to love me with the love of the Lord. He loves me with the love of the Lord. My debts were all paid when He rose up from the grave. And He loves me with the love of the Lord. (from Songs of FAITH and PRAISE)

Jeremiah 8:20. “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”