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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Beautiful Night

If you ask someone in my family, or in my "neigborhood" what they did "last weekend" chances are, they had a bonfire. I'm not sure if people in all parts of the world have as many bonfires as we do, but it's sort of our thing. As soon as it's late enough in the spring that it isn't raining or snowing, we're having bonfires. And we have them right up through Halloween! I would say there is a bonfire either in our 'neighborhood', at a friend's house, or at a family member's house every weekend. We love bonfires. We roast hot dogs and marshmallows. We make s'mores, sometimes we light off fireworks or play with sparklers. Sometimes we shoot potato guns or throw water balloons. A few weeks ago, my brother, my sister, and my niece came over for a bonfire. It was a beautiful evening.

Cliff, Carrie, and Chuck (and Drake) sat around the fire...Dana and Gavin sat on the blanket in the grass...


Nathan and Luke played with Gavin... The sun was shining so beautifully through the trees and on the fields of corn... through the rain!


The rain that chased us out of our seats around the fire and into the house... it was still beautiful, but it was wet. It was raining quite heavily as I snapped this photo of our empty chairs around the fire pit. The sun was shining through the rain so beautifully!
The rain brought more than wet seats. We were blessed with the most beautiful rainbow that stretched as far to the North as my camera would reach and as far to the South as my camera could reach. The camer couldn't capture it's extreme beauty. A double rainbow as wide as our view!

After the rainbow faded and clouds began to move out, we saw this...
and finally, this...
What a beautiful night. This is why we live where we do, why we gather outside with family and friends as often as we can. This is why we roast marshmallows over an open fire - so that we might capture the beauty and grace that God offers us and that is so easy to miss if we don't have our eyes open. Here's to many beautiful summer nights.

2 comments:

Big Sis said...

Simply amazingly beautiful!

Kat said...

Amen! God crafted the midwest with special care and attention. Of all the places I have been on this earth - there is no place more glorious.

PS - Our fire pit smolders from May to October too ;-)