Life Is Cold And Barren Here

This why I love living on Long Island. Because even on a cold spring day, before any flowers have bloomed, I can still find beautiful scenes like these. Scenery like this bring me back to life. No, they bring me back to reality.  They remind me that even when everything around you is cold, dead and barren there is still beauty to be found. God is still at work, even when the world around you is crumbling and it seems like there's no end to what we think is unnecessary pain and conflict, he's making something beautiful.  

Something that we can not see with the naked eye and something we can not touch with printed fingers. Not yet at least. It's a promise he made to us long before any of us ever exesisted, in the garden of eden that evil will not prevail. Not in this world, not in our hearts and most certainly not over our lives. Bad times will come but they cannot stay. Storms will rage and devistate but they will not prevail. And evil will surrond us but we will not be overcome.  Why, because only God has the final word and that word has already been spoken.  He said, "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades (Revelation 1:17‭-‬18). 

He holds the key to our furture. Not our circumstances or our surroundings. Not even our sins or our short comings can determine our destiny. They can cause undue damage and heartache but they can not change God's plan for your life.  God's ultimate purpose will be fulfilled.  Now how many bumps a bruses you get along the way is partially up to you.  But God does promise to finish the good work that he began in you.  So don't give up. Don't look back. Move forward in the will of God his way.  And remeber that not even you can mess up your own destiny.

                         
                                                    -Sarabeth