Fairy Irises

The fairy irises are in full bloom in our garden. They say that when the iris flowers, it heralds the rain. Yeah come summer African rains, come. This heat is starting to get a tad uncomfortable. 

Maybe the irises are blooming for the nonagenarians who have recently crossed over. Last Friday my great aunt Isa past on at the age of 95 and now I hear that Stanley Lieber also past at the age of 95 yesterday. Better known as Stan Lee, this real life hero will not be forgotten. 

After the Storm

After the daily afternoon storms, our front garden is unexpectedly flourishing. When the two large trees were cut down in the front, there was nothing much left to beat off the harsh African sun, but left to its own devices the garden has sprung back with cycads and irises popping up everywhere. Nice to see God's green hand over the land.

Taking about God I was given a word tonight from Kerry at our Connect group. It has been a harsh week for me with all what has gone wrong. The word is from Isaiah 49:2 "He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver" God is busy polishing me, the arrow in his quiver. Preparing me, taking off all the rough edges, and polishing me, for a work that he has planned for me. Well I know that I am too close to the cliff face to see the bigger picture and I don't feel that I am of any use as I am, so if God has a plan for me, I need a lot of polishing.

Fairies and Woodpeckers

Yesterday and today have been rather hard on me and this stress is taking its toll. I arrived back from Pretoria yesterday late morning, tired, hot and bothered only to find the fibre is down since this morning and no one has an answer to when it will be back. Mid afternoon, an SMS arrives from Vumatel to inform us that it would take 10 to 14 hours to rectify as they have to wait for City Power to make the area safe. So what happened to their SLA of 7 hours to repair any damage to the line, uhmmm, Vumatel is like all the others.

Anyway 14 hours came and went, and this morning still no firbe. No fibre means no internet, no work. So I started preparing to go out and work at a place with internet when I got the message that my mom took a turn for the worse. From the sounds of the messages I got, her heart faded, and with hardly any blood pressure, the medical team injected adrenaline and her heart went in the opposite. It is not well.

The fibre finally came back and I started working to get my mind off all my stress but after an hour the power tripped. A whole section of our suburb was out, expecting it to be restored quickly, we were mistaken as we were kept in the dark on what was going on, excuse my pun but it was only about 3ish in the afternoon that we found out that they found the fault and power will be restored between 20h00 to 21h00 as they have to repair a faulty cable. Shortly after 21h00, we received another message that they still working frantically to restore power and it should be back up at 23h00.

In the meanwhile I received a message from my sister that mom is stable. A second vascular operation was scheduled for tomorrow but that has now been postponed until further tests on my mom’s heart can be run. I went to bed.

At about 22h22 I woke to find the lights back on. Yay, so now I can post a photo that I took earlier of the Fairy Iris or Dietes grandiforia, which is flowering in my garden at the moment. I enjoy my garden which calms me a bit, although wine did help this evening. Anyways my garden is a beautiful attraction to butterflies and bees, with plenty of sunbirds and as of this evening a Cardinal Woodpecker came a knocking.

Wind in my Beard

After another comfortable sleep at the Protea Hotel in Clarens, we had a late start to the day, but we are on holiday so it is worth it. After brunch we headed to the Golden Gate Highlands National Park for a round trip back home.

It was stunning driving the rolling hills through the majestic sandstone cliffs of the Free State. Yes not all of the Free State is flat; some of it is very beautiful. It was so peaceful to be away from the madding crowds of the city and be so high up, close to God with the wind in my beard.

As I stood there with on this high mountain hill with this Watsonia Confusia iris at my feet and a breezy wind blowing, I thought of Elijah, who had just ran away from King Ahab and Queen Jezebel in fear for his life, how he too stood on top of the mountain seeking the Lord God. A mighty wind tore down the mountainside, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind came an earthquake, then a fire, but the Lord was not found in either of them too. After all these mighty things, Elijah heard the Lord in a gentle whisper.

So as I stand on this high place, not knowing what is before me, but knowing that God is all around me. I push in towards God, and hear His gentle voice, “I Love you, I will not let you fall”.