A month from now we’ll be wilting in the heat. We’ll be wearing T-shirts from Destin and flip-flops from the dollar store to keep the soles of our feet from blistering on the sand at the beach or the concrete at the water park.

But today we wear sweatshirts and socks to protect from the clouds and the breeze and the misty rain. The season’s last crockpot of chili might be waiting for you when you get home. 

We’ve got a cool snap.

The next time we eat soup it will be the middle of summer, when the vegetables are coming in: red potatoes, sweet corn, beefsteak tomatoes, prickly okra, purple-hull peas, crookneck squash, shiny zucchini. Any and all of it can turn into fresh vegetable soup, which we do with it to stay ahead of the harvest and so avoid having our kitchens and refrigerators overwhelmed by a VeggieTales invasion.

I’m sad to say that after working outside in 90+ degree heat, clothing soaked by sweat, the last thing I want to do is eat a bowl of piping hot soup. I have to cool down in the air conditioning under a fan, and I imagine my near ancestors rolling in their graves, shaking their heads in disappointment that I am not more flinty and toughened.

But it’s not hot today. It’s the kind of weather that makes you second-guess whether you should put up your winter clothes or take the extra blanket off the bed. 

It’s not that it’s been terribly cold, but we, like chilled blossoms, have already gotten used to 80 degree days. Anything below that puts us back into hibernation mode.

Some might say it’s blackberry winter, but most of the flowers on the thorny canes have already begun the process of forming fruit.

Rest assured, that draining, soul-sucking heat is on the way, and we will also have ripe blackberries in a month’s time. 

So maybe this cool snap is for us more so than for the flowering plants.

Maybe it is a message and a reminder.

I’ve sat on my porch for the last little while, the gentle breeze at times turning into persistent winds, the way a child will tug on your sleeve to demand attention. They blow from one direction, and after a moment of calm, from the opposite. 

The winds are speaking:

Enjoy me. It’s not time to rush off to summer vacation just yet. The grass is too wet to cut today. Let it be.

Sit and let me speak to your soul. Remember me when it is late summer, and the drought is parching the ground and drying up the greenness of your spirit.

I will seem like a distant memory, when all you want is a cold drink of water to quench your thirst, and you begin to dream of winter’s snow days.

Just when you think you’re about to wither away like a sun-baked cornstalk, I will be back.

As surely as the seasons change, we know that this is the truth.

“For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.”

Jeremiah 31:25

We will make it through the trials, whether summer’s searing heat or devastating personal tragedy. We will sail through to the other side of the storm with our Guide in the boat.

“I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you.“

John 14:18

A light gray mist is drizzling on the pond and pattering on the porch’s metal roof. Two honking geese have decided to make a stopover, their wings flapping to halt their flight as they disturb the smooth surface of the water, leaving a wake behind them as if they are two quiet jet-skis.

Time is moving slowly.

A red bird is sitting on top of the doghouse, looking to snatch a crumb from the feed bin. Hidden songbirds call to each other. The wind rustles the green leaves of the sawtooth oaks.

Three of our family are sitting in rocking chairs on the porch. 

The two geese begin to call to each other, and by pumping their wings, they rise and they fly away.

The cool wind continues to blow.