Anne Taylor Robertson 11

Natural setting- Rockbridge Alum Springs
“By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.”- Thomas Merton
A few weeks ago I was in Goshen, Virginia. There’s not much out there near Lexington, but that’s one of the qualities that make it incredible. The springtime in western Virginia is always testy- driving down 81 it will be sunny and warm one minute, and it will snow the next. One morning there, I woke up early and sat on the porch. It was drizzling- a little rain left over from the storm during the night. The flowers were just beginning to bloom and the grass was getting greener along with the trees on the mountains. As the sun came up higher in the sky and began to light the small valley we were in near House Mountain, it was like watching life being restored into the world, as silly as it sounds. Sure, it’s beautiful in the fall and winter when the leaves change or when the snow covers the ground, but I think there is something sacred about watching the life come back into it. Maybe it’s a picture of what happens when God breathes His life back into us.