Extras

Here in North Texas, spring comes fairly early. We really haven't really had winter yet this year, and now, with the temperatures already staying in the seventies and eighties, it doesn't seem we'll have one at all. I'm not wild about hot weather, so I'm not looking forward to summer, but I do love the springtime. One of the best things about it is all the new life that sprouts up. After everything seems to die each fall and lay unresponsive throughout the winter, spring is a lovely reminder that God still brings fresh life.

The little area where I live is horse country. I'm told the type of soil we have here is perfect for them to run on, so we have a lot of large horse farms nearby. In February and even late January, we might see a few little foals prancing in the pastures. But now that March is half over, they seem to be everywhere. The new ones are unbelievably tiny, curious and full of vinegar. It takes nothing for one of them to suddenly start running just for the pleasure of it, often inciting other little ones to join him. And, just as quickly, he might drop down and take a sudden nap. It's a simple thing, but I love to just pull over to the side of the road and watch them when I can. They're so excited about running and playing and just being.

In "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty," Doyle's Sherlock Holmes muses as he looks upon a rose: “Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”



I've always loved this comment, something that seems to be an "extra" even in that particular story. There is so much life and beauty around us, if we only take the time to stop and look at it. And as we do, we should stop and give thanks to the One who has, out of His goodness, given to us not just existence but the "extras" that make it delightful.

We have much to hope from the horses.

O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! Psalms 34:8

What have you noticed around you lately that is there just to bring joy?

What do you pass by every day that you could stop and give thanks for?

DeAnna Julie Dodson has always been an avid reader and a lover of storytelling, whether on the page, the screen or the stage. This, along with her keen interest in history and her Christian faith, shows in her tales of love, forgiveness and triumph over adversity. She is the author of In Honor Bound, By Love Redeemed and To Grace Surrendered, a trilogy of medieval romances, and Letters in the Attic, a contemporary mystery. A fifth-generation Texan, she makes her home north of Dallas with three spoiled cats.