Reconnecting and Renewing

Reconnecting is always a thing of joy, isn't it?
I had the chance last week to reconnect with the ladies from the church in Jacksonville that we attended while living there.

It has been five years since leaving Jacksonville, but whenever we have the chance to get together, time does not feel as if it has separated us.
Years of fellowship, the crises that we have prayed one another through, the joyful occasions in our lives have knit our hearts together.

My dear friends had arranged to rent a house on the beach, where there was one morning that even my night owl self was up early enough to see the sun rise on the ocean. What a treat that is!

I tackled a small knitting project, knitting a scarf for a friend's daughter. I love to knit, but don't have the sit down time too often to do it, so that was a treat, especially to be able to actually FINISH something. It's been too long. (I have a blanket that I started for a baby who is now 15 years old. But I made a mistake with the gauge, so it doesn't go together properly. Who knew that making white squares and black squares would turn out different sizes, even using the same crochet hook?)

A barefoot walk on the beach, the friendships rekindled, the time to relax. I feel renewed.

And then getting back home was delayed by a blizzard that pounded the East Coast. Our normal mild winters had one last hurrah, that gave me an extra day in Florida. The night I got home, it was 5* outside with several inches of snow. I was reminded of winters in Wisconsin. Now it is 5 days later, and we have the windows open. Yup, climate change! It's all good, it is supposed to be like that. Winter changes into spring. There is a time to plant and a time to harvest. Sometimes we need to renew ourselves to be able to continue to serve our families, and the time at the beach was good for that. Thank you to all who were a part of that.