Before the Beginning

It has been almost fifty years since I first came and walked on this land.  When I came then, it was just as one who visits.  It was not a place I ever thought about living as I do now.  As I started picking up another year of pecans under the trees that stand around the place, I remembered that they were here, tall and old and producing, back then.  Long before I came they were here.  And the two sycamore trees which now tower head and shoulders above all the other trees near the branch were surely here then, too, but I do not remember looking their way. 

 

It is impossible to walk on the land which is now home without knowing that I have only been here a speck in time.  And when I am gone, my presence will still be no more than a speck.  I hope the trees that tower over me will still be standing when I am gone.  It would be an unbearable sadness to see these things which have lived so long lifeless, stretched out, and broken on the ground.  I do not see God in the trees, or in the fields which have given birth to many crops, but I do see signs which point to Him roaming around on the place doing what only the Creator of the Universe can do. 

 

Daily I am amazed.  Daily I walk in awe at what surrounds me.  Daily I am humbled, mindful more than ever of who I am in the scheme of things.  I do not feel nearly as important as I used to see myself.  I am not the only player who has walked on this stage, but simply one of many.  Many have come before me and there will be many who will come after me.  But, as for now, this is where God has graced me with life and where He has provided a dwelling place.  In these final days and years which are far away from all that is a part of my past, I sense a greater awareness that I am walking and working and living in the presence of the One who has been here since before the beginning.