I belong to a couple of camping groups that I’m active with. Sisters on the Fly came first. Lying in my bed four years ago, I clutched my iPad to my chest and  searched through my photo albums for every picture of Mr. Virgo. I was bereft. My heart was shattered and I wasn’t sure I could survive such a loss. Instinct…sixth sense…Holy Spirit…I was led to seek out other women to walk with me on my path.

Four years. What can happen in four years? A whole presidency. College. A baby becomes a pre-schooler in four years. Four years can make a huge difference in the life of a recovering addict. It can be an eternity for a hostage. It may be restitution for a convict. It represents hope for a cancer survivor.

Four years. It is forever for a widow. Or maybe it’s an hour. Same thing. Four years of roller coaster emotions wears on a person. Four years of bracing for the next wave, no matter how subconsciously you’re doing it. It’s always there. The potential of grief. Because, we’ve seen it. We’ve felt it. We are soldiers in a war that was not our choosing. However…we know our ground. Understanding the terrain of grief gives us better footing. We know what’s coming when we feel the next wave rise against us.

When life hands you lemons, call up the girls…the Girl Campers, that is! Last week I saw that my Girl Camper friends were having a girl’s weekend in the mountains of West Virginia and I thought to myself, “You’re gonna NEED that!” So, I signed up. I called up one of my local friends for a road trip and off we went. It’s been an adventure already, let me tell you!

Ok, today’s post isn’t really preachy but there’s a whole lotta “faithy” in it so if that’s not your thing, y’all can move on and come back tomorrow. But, you may want to see how this “Faith in Provision” pans out.

I found out this week, my truck is totaled. Poor Freida. She served me well…she took me places and towed my house on wheels for 55,000+ miles, gave me very little trouble, and saved my life when we were in a crash two weeks ago. And now, I need a replacement vehicle. Ahhh….wouldn’t a nice, shiny new truck be a lovely thing to own? That new car smell, all the bells and whistles, all the potential trips? Yes, that would be wonderful…but, I’m done buying new cars. The depreciation as you drive it off the lot equals my whole year’s income. Literally. Nope, unless I win the Powerball, I’m done with new cars. I prefer a good, quality, moderate mileage, clean, well-maintained vehicle with one owner.

I used to pray for patience till I read somewhere that God responds with scenario after scenario in which He challenges you to be patient. I don’t really believe that is true but I don’t want to risk it so I don’t pray for patience anymore. Anyone who knows me, even remotely, knows I am not always a very patient person. I can be, but when too many things come at me at once, I lose my grip and get way too cranked up. Yesterday was just such a day.

When I was sixteen, my world changed like every other teenager with a new driver’s license. It wasn’t just my freedom and ability to come and go more easily, but also my perception of the natural world around me. Driving piqued my senses and made me much more aware of my surroundings, and being artistic, that included the way I saw my world.

I remember one mid-summer day, I was heading out of the house and into my mom’s 1964 Ford Fairlane 500 to meet up with my friends. As I turned to close and lock the door behind me, I was suddenly captivated with the way the sun caught on the huge forsythia bush by the back door. While the brilliant yellow of the spring blossoms was long gone, the verdant green foliage was so intense, it almost hurt my eyes. I stood in wonder and let that moment wash over me like watercolors on fresh, velvety paper. I can still, at 63, close my eyes and see that scene in my mind.

Have you ever done a search on Google to research something in the Bible? I never even read the Bible till 2004 after my mom died. Between that and “A Purpose Driven Life” I came to really love this Jesus guy and what he had to say about peaceful living so I became a Christian. I’m not a biblical scholar by any means, so I have to study the Bible a lot to come up with the perfect scripture to accompany my posts that illustrates what my thinking was when writing. It would be so much easier to just pick a verse and write something about that. I do it backwards but I learn more, I believe.

What if it would have been me that died instead of him? I think of these things in the wee hours of the occasional sleepless night. Not so much these days, but in the early years? Yes. Oh my…yes. I tortured myself with every possible scenario this could have taken. Anything to keep me from hitting head on with…“Your husband is dead.” No…that simply will not do. Anything but that. I’d sacrifice my Aunt Sue’s cat if she had one. I’d do just about anything to keep from having to hear those fateful words.

I was sitting in my favorite rocker by the front window last night, thinking about what to write about for this morning’s post. A friend’s name popped in my head and I looked back in my “messages” only to discover it has been five weeks since we last chatted. I wrote her a lengthy note to see how she was doing and filled her in on what’s been happening here. Between traveling for two weeks, my friend’s funeral in Cincinnati, and my wreck…time has warped on me. It’s like the clock face in this picture…a Dali-esque trip down Alice’s rabbit hole. Still…things must get done around here.

Spring is showing up here on the farm. The dense underbrush is leafing out in a bright spring green…even though you have to look hard for it. The grass is looking more like a lawn and less like a mud bog. New bird calls are apparent every week. There was a skiff of snow on this morning, and we’ll still have quite a bit of cold weather, but the unmistakable signs of spring are doing their job and brightening my mood.