What story, image, thought, word, poem, emotion, animal or other does summer speak to you?
“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Mark 13:28
Consider the lilies of the field… Matt 6:28
thedailylily.com 
Whoa…Sara….”thou breakest my heart with this glorious image”!! Summer! How we long for the shores of that great ocean especially during the warmest season of the year.
In Sara’s study book she wrote about Summer Fruit. For, in Amos 8:1-2a, in conjunction with the Scripture above from Mark 13, we find the “basket of summer fruit” indicates an era about to close or which is closing even now. “And thus the Lord showed me a basket of Fruit…summer fruit (which would soon lose its bloom and perish). Tell me what you see, asks the Lord God of Amos. He replies, ‘a basket of Summer fruit.’ The Lord answers, it indicates the end of a season…an era which is finished”
Jesus tells us to discern the seasons…not really the meteorological season of Summer but the Season in which God is working out His plan right now.
I don’t want to be in the wrong season of God’s anointing. I don’t want to be wearing tee shirt & crops in the middle of Winter or long woolies in the middle of July. I want to be clothed in the current vesture and be able to discern the season in which God is doing His glorious work. Else I will be counted out and fade like the Summer Fruit that perishes if kept too long. For, I want my fruit to be as “apples of gold in pitchers of silver” Proverbs 25:11.
Sounds like MG with her comment quoting from Biblical Amos has reminds us that dreams, visions and sharing always has a place since change is imminent. Each day when I hear news citing the results of laws and changes in the world I wonder have I discerned the times?
Summer,
Your days are filled with longest light
more than any other time of year.
The Lord gives Light to see longer,
so to work harder
to keep up with plants growing
and producing a summer ‘s season of yield.
Sometimes I have to put on sunglasses for
Your Light is so bright…and your heat so intense
It makes me wilt.
But your summer storms bring replenishing rains
and occasionally a refreshing breeze.
Summer you give and you take.
You hold treasures unlike any other time of the year!
Southern Living July 2013…sums up summer for me: Fried Chicken, Peach Pound Cake, Pmiento Cheese, Squash Casserole, Fried Okra, Chicken Salad! Oh Whoa, this says summer to me!
You forgot the home-made vanilla ice cream for the pound cake.
“What story, image, thought, word, poem, emotion, animal or other does summer speak to you?” Sara, the picture above sure sets the stage for the “image” of summer. Nothing like kicking your shoes off and walking in the sand, feeling the cool breeze, and smelling the scent of that salt air!
Sara, you wrote in the book: “Designs of One’s Heart”, Summer retreat, 2010: “Let’s review our seasons and their meanings, Spring Shows Us. Winter Tells Us. Summer Maintains Us and Fall Proves Us. Spring has a way of telling us how beautiful or how not so beautiful we are. And Winter has a way to dig really deep in the earth of our inner being and tell us some of the things that we need to cultivate in our lives. While summer comes around in the warmth of our soul and maintains us.”
Sara, I have a note written in my book, after this lesson on Summer – Maintains Me. “It’s a time to preserve and move, so that we won’t be dried up fruits. We will be fresh usable productive fruits – for the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep your mind on God and His Word so that you are equipped with whatever you need to sustain yourself, when the enemy seeks to destroy you.”
“Summer Maintains Me!” Thrilling to read and experience the teaching Tammy has put before us as a summer meal fit for a king. “Seasons of Life.” I hear so many of my friends talking about canning all the fresh fruits and vegetables that are so plentiful and beautiful in the season of summer. Just think when the cold snowy winter is upon us and we pop the jar and taste the fresh fruit preserved for our enjoyment and sustenance for life the emotion we will have and share.
Summer, sweet fragrances, taste buds having eyes to experience ‘dug’ potatoes right out of the ground, yeah, roots, pole beans, sugar snaps, shallots, lettuce….just to mention a few. I can see, hear, smell and taste the dinner pot about to deliver to our tables the joy of friendship, fellowship and relationship as we share our meals and times together!
I can hardly hold back the ‘tear of summer’ I felt warm on my cheek as I watched Paula Deen being interviewed by Matt Lauer this am. I really don’t know her or even understand what is going on to bring her so much pain. I saw a woman in deep distress with sorrow of the soul wanted to be seen for the person she has shown to be and not the story being told. A season of life for one of God’s Children sure shows the line Tammy quoted above to be true; “Keep your mind on God and His Word so that you are equipped with whatever you need to sustain yourself, when the enemy seeks to destroy you.” I pray for Paula Deen and a safe route for her as she travels in this storm to a safe haven. May God grant to all of us, Mercy, as a traveling companion as we enjoy the wonders of summer including our vacations and safe travels for all.
I love Elderberries and Elderflowers…they have (at least to my palate) the flavor of Muscat grapes which is a childhood taste that I hold on to in emotions. Summer gives me the feeling of; it’s OK to relax, exchange ideas and share from the fruit of the land. Summer makes the Psalms written by a Psalmist easy to sing under the old oak tree, or in the light of changing, vanishing. waxing, wooing moons! Psalm (136:12) along with Jeremiah (32) “Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.” Exciting new energy shows face, hands and grace to prove to my waning thoughts that His outstretched arm is bigger than my thoughts. As I exchange His Graces with others I see more of His great power. As we take our speciality and hand unite with others, Whoa, summer gives me my favorite month, JULY, and it POPS! Enjoy!
Ah, yes…summer! What that means to me as a teacher of ‘elementary’ proportions! That season when the schools yield forth with a burst of joyous whoop their colorful crop of wiggly, giggly kids; out of classroom doors, down kid-speckled hall, clambering onto gargantuan yellow school buses…full force toward the swimming pools of suburbia. And the teachers pack up their supplies of manuals, text books, pencils and stickers into neat, small and great boxes, blow a kiss, and wave goodbye to the nonplused, eleven-month secretaries who sit stolidly behind their desks. Mona Lisa smiles are upon their faces and the promise of quiet halls and rarely ringing phones keep their spirits buoyed.
It’s almost a sacred time…summer…the much needed break from scurried and hurried classes; the commuting; the deadlines, assessments, finals, the concerts, the plays, the ball games and always the teary goodbyes when it’s all over. Summer. No wonder Sara wrote in her book, “Summer Maintains Me”. Summer does do excellent maintenance on the heart and the soul and the spirit….preparing it for that next great performance of nature..AUTUMN.
But that’s another story!
MG, ‘elementary season’ you, teacher, have mused about sure gives visual aid to the axles of earth life. Must come from your piano stance! Play it again, Sam! We all love the music one! Over and over and over again! Yes, seasons, children, sounds, fruit and growth sure paints our sidewalks with murals that give us mirrors. Thanks for being a music teacher and giving our nation’s fields ears of growth!
Animal? Would a talking deep-voiced bullfrog be in the class of animal? Well, I will placed them there for the purpose of summer animal. As I sit outside by the pond with midnight approaching I overhear the privacy of deep water pond’s residents as they loudly enjoy their nightly duties! Their deep voice melody can calm the soul, give voice to inner creativeness and lull one to a peaceful sleep as it seems their heart voice joins in perfect harmony with the ear heart as I just doze off to sleep. Oh, big old fat, deep voiced bullfrog you are more of a sedative than a synthetic drug made for sleep!
Sara, your descriptive words of listening to the bullfrog makes me wonder, if you heard any crickets. 🙂
Ok, Tammy, crickets are my favorite singing companions! One never knows the time and tune they just might sing. Silence seems forbidden to them. When all is still they chirp the message time is never still. Lovers will meet and kiss? Don’t you just love the melody of some of our littlest creatures?
Oh, yes.
Thinking on your scripture, Sara, ““Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Mark 13:28″…it must have been summer when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the fruit in the garden of Eden for they sewed ‘fig leaves’ together to cover themselves.
Good though Debi! But, could it not be that all seasons/days/times were fruit bearing seasons until the greediness of man?
Yes, it seems it could be “that all seasons/days/times were fruit bearing seasons until the greediness of man”. Genesis does say that God made every tree grow that was good for food. These were apparently ‘trees bearing fruit with seeds’. And since Adam and Eve must have needed food year around, it stands to reason that their were fruit bearing trees to feed them at every season, on every day and at all times since they were told they could freely eat of all of them except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Sara, your remarks smack of one of my all-time favorite musicals…and yours, too, I believe, with the title song…THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC…with songs they have sung for a thousand years”….[maybe more ! ] And the earth does resound with with a musical sound. The Lord God confronted Job with this question, “Whereupon are the foundations there fastened? or who laid the corner stone of earth; When the morning stars, [angels] SANG together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? [Job 38:7]
It seems the music of the universe was orchestrated and directed and conducted by the Creator of this global concert hall, Earth. The Music was set as Father God, through Jesus Christ, hung the stars and set the cornerstone of planet Earth in its place.
How fortunate am I to be a part of that Global orchestra, with my singing and playing students, using their God-given talents. And as the Earth revolves on its axis, that imaginary line that permeates and penetrates the heart of planet Earth….the music of God reverberates through the ancient & innumerable layers of creation.
I like to think that God the Father and the Son and the Spirit are well-pleased and delighted when they hear the treble voices of our children’s choirs raised in song.
Can you imagine the how fantastically musical our Creator is? He gave each item of His creation a song. The crickets sing. The bull frog does his ‘Tubby the Tuba’ melody. The rocks cry out. The trees of the field clap their hands. The hills are alive with the sound of music. The wind whistles many tunes; sometimes jolly, sometimes mysterious. The birds warble. The mammals of the sea, the dolphins, the whales all have a song of the deep.
Deep calls unto deep. The morning stars sing together. Plus, all of the magnificent, creative geniuses….the composers of long ago and of today; songwriters, orchestral directors; Oh! what a glorious God we serve. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork….Music, melody, harmony, rhythm. The Lord God will rejoice over us with singing. The Lord God does it all.
“And when they had finished supper…and after singing a hymn they departed the house”
Jesus’ SONG, even as the planning of His betrayal was in progress.