Dear Reader:

The low country has been waiting quite awhile for a good ‘soaking’ and finally yesterday the rains arrived. I did have mixed emotions since the Flowertown Festival is in full swing this weekend…but hopefully Friday’s sales and yesterday’s mornings sales…will tide vendors over until today…the last day of the Festival.

FLOWERTOWN FESTIVAL

The famous Cooper River Bridge Run got participants through the early morning run/walk and subsequent activities, before the rains started around 1:30…so all in all the rains didn’t mess up too many events…and everyone knows we sure do need the rain here in the low country.

Lassie and I walked the Bridge Run one year and I am so glad I did it…at least once…so I can always relate more closely to the race participants each year with that one personal experience. We discovered that there is a special bonding that takes place among all the runners or walkers…especially the people in your group for ‘take-off.’

The race starts out with a fervor…people nudging and/or bumping one another to get ‘one up’ on someone in front of them but then as the race continues…especially once  fatigue sets in…the competitive spirit evolves into a spirit of fellowship and fellow walkers begin encouraging everyone else that ‘we can do it’...just keep walking and talking and laughing…in some cases even holding hands. By the end we all feel a real sense of bonding together to meet each one’s separate but unified goal…completing the race!

This is true of God’s bonding…reflected in the truth that Christ holds all things together. Watching rain fall has always been a spiritually bonding experience for me…in the form of a blessing from Above. In scripture water plays an important role in the creation of our earth. “Long ago by God’s Word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. (2 Peter 3:5)

 Water fills every cell of every living thing everywhere. “We can’t see Christ bonding everything together, but then again, we are not consciously aware of the hydrogen bonds occurring at this moment to keep our world adhered.”

“In liquid water, the molecules are held near each other by the hydrogen bonds. The attraction is not enough to chemically combine the atoms, but it is enough to keep the molecules close to each other…without hydrogen bonds holding the molecules together as liquid, we would have not rivers, lake or oceans because all water would be gas.” – Jean f. Blashfield, Hydrogen, Sparks of Life series (1999)

So until tomorrow:

Isn’t everything on earth so magical, beyond most of our mortal limitations of understanding…only God grasps the universal design of life with all its intricacies…we can only pray for understanding that God knows how we were formed…and He, alone, can hold us together.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Susan Swicegood…I had a ‘year ago today’ memory pop up of us at Kaithlyn’s wedding shower this time last year. Isn’t it hard to believe it has almost been a year since the wedding?