close encounter ...

This has been a good day!

It started the way it always does ...
Alarm going off at 5AM,
Racing to get dressed ... timing every minute,
And then out the door at 5:40 to do the two mile walk to the bus stop.

Although I take the daily trek out of necessity, I don't mind the walk. I actually enjoy it ...
I love the quietness and have found it an ideal time to pray and sing and think ... alot!

Last week, that touch of serenity was interrupted when something unexpectedly ran across my path. It was not a bunny. Although I have seen a few of those in the months I've been walking. It was not a stray cat ... seen a couple of those. It was not a duck ... can't count how many of those I've seen. Neither was it a beautiful bird. IT WAS RAT! And it was not just any rat ... it was a huge rat. I think he was almost as big as my Min-Pin ... no exaggeration.  It completely grossed me out.

Getting back to this morning ...
My quiet stroll had another unexpected visitor.
And was it ever a close encounter ...

As I walked down the dark sidewalk with forests on both sides of the street, I froze at the same time a car coming down the other side of the road applied his brakes. And there she was ... the most beautiful doe I have ever seen, leaping across the road with such grace that I saw her before I heard her. She was only about four feet in front of me and this was no baby ... she was full grown. It was abolutely wonderful!

She stopped right at the edge of the forest to my right. And as I walked past her, she just looked at me as if to say, 'Did you see that? He almost hit me!' And I looked at her as if to say, 'Wow! You almost hit me!' Then she started to walk into the woods and I continued on my way.

I think I grinned the rest of my walk ... it just made my morning! I love nature always. But when something like that happens, it is just like getting a little present from my Heavenly Father. And somehow it seemed fitting with how I have been feeling lately and after that awesome time in His presence last night and this morning.

Absolutely Beautiful!

'He makes me as surefooted as a deer,

enabling me to stand on mountain heights.'

Psalm 18:33 NLT

'Say to those who have an anxious heart,
“Be strong; fear not!
Behold, your God
will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
He will come and save you.”

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
For waters break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert.'   

Isaiah 35:4-6 ESV