Emphasis Preaching Journal

The dirt road invited her to leave the highway that April morning, beckoning her toward woods that graced a distant hilltop. She accepted its invitation, every sense keen to the sights and sounds which seemed to offer so much peace in the midst of a world that usually rushed past much too fast. Frost laced the hollows and low places by the road, startling beautiful in the 20-degree-below-normal dawn. She followed the road to the top of the hill, to a cleared area surrounded by trees. She parked her car and got out to stand in the peace of the forest, to receive whatever blessing had called her to this place. Bird songs seemed to crystalize in the cold. To the east, the sun, blood-red between layers of slate-
gray clouds, speared her attention. Its rich, rugged color evoked thoughts of Christ's passion as redness spread in brilliant stain across the horizon. She wondered then how those who knew him could have borne the Master's death had he not risen; how any of us could withstand the death of those who feed our souls, as friends and mentors do, were it not for an unshakeable certainty that only the body dies; that the spirit, created from love, the divine energy of the universe, is eternal, continuing after physical death in ways we of mortal flesh can only begin to imagine as our spiritual awakening draws us even closer to the mystery. Whispering a prayer of gratitude in the gentle hush of newborn day, she returned to her car and its too-fast world, carrying the forest's gift in her heart. -- Fannin