Scenes from the Foothills

I had the opportunity to visit our home church here in Spokane yesterday. This is Foothills Community Church, and it's name is descriptive in that it sits at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains on the eastern side of Washington State.













The church is surrounded by farmland, mostly wheat and alfalfa. In the middle of acres and acres of crops you'll find a little oasis of green and brown...a farmhouse, barns and various bits of farm machinery.











As I was driving home yesterday after church, I was struck by the beauty of the landscape, and thought I'd show you all a bit of the scenery around here. All of these photos were taken within 2 miles of the church.


The second mountain top from the left is called Mt. Spokane...the mountain I learned to ski and snow board on. It's brown and bare now, but winter will change all that.










A combine harvester collecting all the wheat...




















...and then transferring the grain to waiting trucks.















Hay is either baled in big rectangles and stacked...




















...or rolled into balls that dot the land. (I'm sure there are other ways of baling and storing hay, but I'm a city girl!)



















These are common sights in the front yards around this neck of the woods.

We're a patriotic bunch.

More yard decorations.














Driving through these fields brought to mind Jesus' words,

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

John 12:24

I've been thinking about death a lot this last 12 days as I've sat by my granny's side, holding her hand, praying with her. And it's given me a fresh desire to live this life fully and completely for the Lord. In order to do that, I've got to die daily to my own desires and plans that are not in line with God's plan. If I want to be fruitful, I've got to die to self. Death equals life, in God's kingdom, both now while we breathe, and later when we physically die.

It's all about surrender and falling into those loving arms that will catch us every time, and never let us go.