Good morning, DearHeart.

I’m back by the fire this morning. Out the window earlier, looking toward the barn, I wonder what we’ll find in the lot of Dale’s calving heifers on the other side. I’m also wondering how can air that rushes in my lungs so crisp and clean feeling be so harsh. Like the snow – so simple and quiet, calm …. yet, it is also haunting and brutal. Deceiving.

Ellie, my dachshund, stands at the back door that leads down to the barn when she needs to go out. This morning, she walked bravely out the door on the snow-free path that Luke shoveled before he left yesterday. She stood there, shuffling back and forth trying to decide which bank of snow she would dive through to make her way to the back porch where I let her back in. The snow was much taller than her.

It’s a difficult journey for every breathing thing right now.

There were no smooth, paved roads that took God’s people through valleys, through mountains and other rough terrain as they made their way back and forth to and from Jerusalem each year either.

Yet, they found strength in God Himself to keep returning to Him. The traveler’s fortitude, stick-to-it-ive-ness, help me navigate these hard winter days that can wear down our bodies and our minds.

God will be our help. “I look up to the mountains – does my help come from there? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!” (Psalm 121: 1-2, NLT).

May you and I look to the Maker, our Maker, for all help.

He is our support system. “He will not let you stumble; the One who watches over you will not slumber” (verse 3, NLT).

The God of the Angel Armies stays ever positioned, ever alert to our needs. To your needs even in this very moment. To my needs. To the needs of the livestock, wild animals, birds, the needs of the fields and streams and the skies.

“The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever” (verse 8, NLT). The words “watches over” are used five times in this short psalm (verses 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8.)

Discouragement and harm and snow stacked higher than us will threaten to invade our space, but God deposits into each of us all that we need to press on in our journey. All we need to press into Him. There is never a moment He is not faithfully watching over us.

May we look up, from the bottom of the high drifts and see our Help.

Wake up.

God’s got a plan.

Press on.

Go.