This morning began with a chilly three degrees outside.  Snow and patches of ice still cover the ground and tarmac outside.  Thankfully, the thermometer slowly rose to the day’s high of nineteen…but the wind chill made it feel so much colder.  As much as I enjoy opening all the drapes first thing in the morning, today they remained closed.  The goal today was staying warm.  Later this week a heat wave of 45 is predicted!  I look forward to that and will enjoy letting the sunshine in the windows then.

I’ve been thinking about promises today.  If you’re at all like I am, then you don’t make promises lightly.  Neither does God.  There are amazing promises in the Bible.  One of my favorite promises is found in Jeremiah 29:11.  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”.  The past two years of my life have held some sadness and a few challenges.  At times,  I confess to wondering what God had in store for me.  Still, I clung to the promise He made in Jeremiah 29:11.  He is faithful and I am thankful!

Doug left on Sunday for a much anticipated trip to Antarctica!  He made the plans for this once-in-a-lifetime trip to see a part of this world that most of us will never see before the two of us met.  Before he left, he planted the Paperwhite bulbs below for me and placed them on a small table facing the glass door in my kitchen.  As a Master Gardener, he knows far more than I do about plantings, but I could not believe they are “planted” in clean smooth pebbles with barely enough water to cover the pebbles!  Each of the bulbs holds the energy and everything it needs to grow within itself.  Amazing, isn’t it?  There’s a promise within each bulb of the beautiful Paperwhite blossoms they are to become.  Much like the promise you and I hold within each of us!

So, in the meantime, I will take care of these little bulbs and watch them grow.  I will look forward to stories about Penguins, the amazing beauty of Antarctica and camping on the ice when Doug returns! 

Note:  The photo of the Paperwhite blooms above is from Wikipedia.  I will post pics of these bulbs when they bloom!