Summer Ribbons…

     Summer – this gift tied up with ribbons of life…

Creation is never more alive than in the heat and busyness that is summer. Bunnies abound in our grasses right now. Birds chase around comically. All busily eating and putting on winter’s fat for the lean cooler months.

All of us are busy too – going on vacations, or to the beach, or to a picnic, or baseball game. Slurping watermelons and spitting their seeds. Fanning as we sit in the shade. Dipping toes and whole bodies into cool water.

Each of these are gifts – and the opening – the untying of their ribbons is the fun. To wake up on a summer morning and rush outside to feel what little chill there is to the air – a curly blue ribbon of sky above. To listen to the cicada bugs rattle away telling of afternoon rain coming – a silky brown ribbon of wings. To smell the clean air as the storm pelts all wet – a twist of ribbons white and flowing. To taste the peaches and the Vidalia onions and the cucumbers and tomatoes – a rainbow of ribbons wrapping us in delight.

Days of summer fly by, one tumbling into the next – I don’t want to them to fade away unnoticed. I want to tug each ribbon open daily and drink in the gift of this humid, sunny, go barefoot, stay up late listening to the crickets time.

Ann Voskamp wisely said “May we see calendars not so much as rows of boxes to fill up with things to do – but as boxes that we get to unwrap – the present moment is always the gift.” Each day our wonderful Creator gives us ribbons and ribbons to tug open His gifts – given to delight us in ways He created us for, too often we are scurrying after that which has no eternal value.

I still love the old saying ‘Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift that’s why it’s called the present.’ Take time each day to see the abundant, lavish ribbons of His love and savor sweet summer a little longer…