Snippets from an old journal entry

I opened my journal last night, flipped all the way back to July 2014, and began to read...

I write this for that long, cold, winter day when I wish to sit back and dream of Texas. I am sure there will be such a day, or maybe many of them, when I will close my eyes and think of the time – this time – these few short, precious, sweet weeks when we were in Fredericksburg. 

I know I cannot explain or describe Texas: the land, the feeling, the people, the sounds, the depth of love we all have for the rolling land of the Hill Country, and most of all for the friends here.

I am sitting in our trailer this evening, at our little kitchen table. It is 8:42 in the evening, and while the sun has set, it is still quite light outside, that yellowish evening light that is particular to Texas. It is hot. A pleasant hot that warms your bones, and makes you drowsy and sweaty and happy. 

Across the rugged brown field next to our campsite, a white cat silently hunts grasshoppers, silhouetted against the backdrop of green oaks and a darkening Texas sky. Cars and trucks are going by on highway 290 and making a steady comforting sort of rumbling sound, although most of what I hear right now is the air conditioning. 

I really don’t know how to describe this light. The sky is almost a lavender color, slightly pink with the setting sun. It is beautiful. Is it ever not beautiful here?

Cicadas are singing their evening song outside, and other bugs are joining in the chorus, making a cacophony of pleasant music. I am enjoying sitting here and thinking about all the wonderful fellowship we have ahead of us, here in this place of Christians and like-minded friends. 

We have many appointments planned, and it is such an AMAZING feeling! Because right now, at this moment, all the fellowship is ahead of us, and we get to look forward to it, and then when I read this, I’ll sigh and say, “Oh, I remember that… it was such a good time.”