Soap Box

*NOTE* Here's a rewind from 2013 - TeamCDB

I love all the seasons of the year, they all have their particular charisma and charm and I'm thankful to live in a state where we experience four separate seasons, each bringing its own unique style of beauty to the rolling hills of Tennessee we call home.

While the snowbirds evacuate and the road crews start stockpiling salt and sand, bring out the heavy equipment and the temperature drops, Hazel and myself pull out for a little time in the high country of Colorado where the likelihood of a foot of snow falling in 24 hours is not only real but very likely.

Some people think we're a little "touched" to be heading into the teeth of winter instead of away from it, but sitting by a fire 8,700 feet up in the Rockies watching a heavy, all day snow is a unique experience for a Southern boy who rarely saw more than a couple of inches at one time in his youth.

Who can resist the little surge of wonder of seeing the first crocus, the sudden surprise of realizing that little blaze of yellow is actually daffodils springing forth to signal the beginning of another spring?

And how can you even articulate the experience of waking up one morning and discovering that overnight the ground is covered in little sprigs of grass and the trees are sprouting tender shoots of delicate green as God's nature resets for another round of new beginnings?

Spring, when all things are new and the world wakes up from its long winter nap, puts on a fresh coat of multicolored paint and becomes young again right before our eyes.

The days grow longer and warmer, the blossoms come to full bloom and the early morning is alive with the sound of birds, praising their creator and fish jump completely out of the water to trap a close flying bug.

The hardwood trees take on a deep green and the new crop of calves and colts frolic in the pasture and the creeks and branches gurgle and bubble running full with the rainfall from last night's Summer thunderstorm.

Then the crops in the fields mature, the green trees dull ever so slightly, there's a little chill in the late evening air and then one morning we wake up to find the pastures sparkling with frost diamonds in the early morning sun and the squirrels running everywhere gathering hickory nuts to store up for the long barren season ahead.

The weather cools and a big full October moon shines down across our valley and the trees begin their magnificent transformation to the patchwork wonder of fall.

The cows and horses start putting on their winter coat of hair, the late flowers fall to the ground and the leaves turn brown and come off the trees and you know one kind of beauty is just about to be replaced by another kind of beauty.

Soon there'll be a skim of ice on the pond and wood for the fireplace stacked on the back porch, a Christmas tree in the den, the touring year finished, hay in the barn and the little birds we see at the feeders in the backyard have all flown south, marking the end of another season, another year.

And soon it will begin all over again.

Thank you, Lord, for the beauty you created that surrounds us in all seasons.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem

God Bless America

� Charlie Daniels

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