THE FIRST FROST OF WINTER

Even before I was up, Mr. HCB, who had got up at about 6.30 a.m., was upstairs looking out of the window, watching the traffic snarling up with all those who are unfortunate enough to have to go to work on a Monday morning!  He said that there had been quite a hard frost, our first real one of the winter, so if I wanted to get my Blip done early, then I'd better get up and do it before the sun melted it.

Of course, I took lots of photographs, and there were some pretty patterns on leaves, but this collection of rubbish vine eyes and wires on the blue garden seat appealed to me.  A photograph of the “pretty” leaves is in the extras - but I thought everyone would be taking frosty leaves - but sometimes it’s good to be different - which reminded me of our sermon yesterday.  It's so easy to be like everyone else and to try and fit in;  in fact, sometimes we just "slip into" being like that because of all that is happening around us, but we were reminded of the verse in Romans 12 that says:

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, 

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.....

Or as The Message so eloquently puts it:

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture 
that you fit into it without even thinking. 
Instead, fix your attention on God. 
You’ll be changed from the inside out. 
Readily recognize what he wants from you, 
and quickly respond to it. 
Unlike the culture around you, 
always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, 
God brings the best out of you, 
develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12 : 2