Dedicated To The Ones I Love

Just really feel the "need" to put this down where everyone can read it, today and again, tomorrow. I was off and away on two wheels to do a job for a brother today. The journey took me far from home, and lead me to surprising people. Even before I mounted my steely steed to head toward the rising sun I was blessed by folks I've never had the pleasure of meeting face to face. From across the globe smiles greeted me along with the warmth of fellowship shared in a common faith. So, my first thanks go out to the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for guiding me, and protecting me, and returning me to the arms of number two in my life(or four, depending on how you count that first one), my wife, Cheryl. She's the reason I post the flower pics a lot of times, and she does love her flowers! I like them, too, but not quite the same way she does. I think that she finds a peace, sort of like the one I find on a long, winding stretch of highway on two wheels, when she is busy about the task of digging in the dirt and planting, weeding, watering, and, in general, tending to her gardens. Our lives, it occurred to me, are so much like her gardens, that the comparison is uncanny. Did you know that some flowers don't look anything like flowers until they bloom? I didn't! I expected that flowers just sort of had a certain way of looking and just got prettier the longer they looked that way. Not so, inspector preacher! Some plants are as ugly as sin, and then just pop, all of a sudden, into something gloriously beautiful. I'm still waiting for that to happen with some of my riding buds. You'd think since I refer to them as "buds" there would eventually be a "flower." We'll see. Number three on my personal hit parade today is my family, all the children and grand children with which I have been blessed. Number four is also family, the extended ones that I only see once in awhile. All day they have been surprising me! Five is the circle of family with whom I share in the local Body of Christ. Thank you, Lord for my faithful family of firm believers. Six is the new friends in Christ that I found along the roads. Personally, I think God was so busy blessing my life today that He did some overtime and deserves a heartier "AttaGod" than I can express here. (I promise to cover that in my prayers tonight) Seventh come the great people I see everyday, the guy in the supermarket, the one on the highway that waved and smiled from his tractor, and the fellows that drive those eighteen wheelers out there that keep an eye open for Harleys of all description. Finally there was the old guy at the service station and his older still buddy. They admired the scoot so much I could have spent an extra hour just telling stories(in the shade)about riding. Another pastor comes to mind as I recount on fingers and toes the folks that made this a wonderful day, but most of all I simply give thanks for the life I have and the ways that I can be pleasantly surprised and awed by the presence of One who lets me know I am never alone. God bless, have a good one, Preacher!