Thought for the month
We have just experienced the hottest April on record, apparently. I have to say that it has been glorious, but of course gardeners and farmers are saying that we need rain. Well yes, I suppose we do but our bird and animal life have been particularly blessed because the warm weather has given the birds loads of insects to catch and feed to the babies and the foxes and badgers have been able to hunt for food without getting soaked and cold. We shall shortly see the baby foxes and badgers playing in the sun, if as the long-range weather forecast says May is going to be dry with the temperature in the mid-teens.
The Bluebells in our woods are in full flow now and there are literally thousands of them carpeting the ground, shaded by the trees and looking glorious. I have mauve and white lilac trees out in full bloom, mock orange blossom, a beautiful ‘wedding cake tree’ ‘May’, and the first roses of this year all out in my garden. Camelias, daffodils, tulips, primroses, and early wildflowers have all finished now. It never ceases to amaze me how Our Wonderful Lord brought everything into to being and how everything has a way of recreating itself. Our Great Father put everything together, nothing has been forgotten, everything works to perfection if we humans don’t interfere.
As I write this, I am watching 2 baby rabbits playing on my lawn, they live under the Hydrangea bushes. I assume it is the same mummy rabbit that produces babies every year because we always have them in the same place. They grow up amazingly quickly and in what seems to be no time at all head off to find a mate and start a family of their own.
Many years ago, our Jack Russell frightened a mother rabbit on another ‘nest’ (they don’t seem to live in burrows like they did years ago) and the mother ran off and never came back so I had to take care of the babies and feed them milk until they were old enough to start eating dry leaves etc. When they were big enough, I made plans to set them free in one of my fields next to a wood but sadly the day before I intended doing this one of them suddenly died. However, I took the surviving baby out to the field and set it down. It just stood there looking at the huge world and after a short while it scampered off, when it had gone about 10 metres it stopped turned round and looked at me as if to say ‘thank you for helping me’ then off it went, never to be seen again.
On Easter Saturday we created the ‘tomb’ that you see on the front page. After we had completed our creation, we stopped to pray and ask Jesus to send some young people to see it at our Easter Service the following day.
We had quite a few extra people from the village join us but no young people by 6-30 pm
As we were singing our first hymn the door opened and 3 young people walked in and as they went off to find a seat more came, followed by more, until in the end there were about 18 of them. How amazing is that? As I have said so many times before, Our Lord always answers our prayers!
Enjoy your life and remember when you remember to pray to Jesus, he always listens to everything you say to Him. You are never alone; Jesus is always there for you!