Beauty and the Beast

Many of you know that we had a real winter storm in Tennessee yesterday. I classify it because many times these storms never materialize although people clear the bread & milk from the grocery store days before they've been forecasted to hit.

For as long as we've lived in this state "snow" is considered a four-letter word that sends everyone running for cover. The longer I've lived here the more I've come to understand why.

Sleet, snow, and ice are beastly to deal with here in the South. Many of the roads are windy. Quite a few of the driveways run uphill. We have something called "black ice" which I am pretty sure is invisible.

There are very few tire tracks down the street right now. A few hours ago I watched as our neighbor tried to get into her driveway. To fully appreciate the amazement of her struggle you'd have to see that the driveway is hardly a car's length in distance but covered with inches of solid ice. She made it but it took quite a lot of work.

I'd hoped to go outside and enjoy a day of picture taking. We seldom see a thick covering of snow so I was anxious to capture the moment. That is until my husband told me that doorwall was frozen shut. Suddenly the wintery wonderland did not sound so appealing to me.

I did manage to brave the snice (you get it--snow + ice) long enough to get a shot of some icicles. That was not very difficult since we had freezing rain this morning. I found this one to be quite beautiful and convenient since I did not have to leave the porch to capture it.

When I came back inside I noticed a headline on Examiner.com. I write there which is why I haven't been blogging here as much lately. A woman in the next county over from us had been killed by a tree full of icicles that fell on the roof of her mobile home.

Ironic, isn't it, that something so beautiful can be so beastly?

Kind of reminds me of sin. The Bible says it is pleasant for a season but in the end it brings death. In other words "it" initially looks good but will eventually kill us.

It's sad that something like a fallen iced tree could kill a person instantly.

Sadder yet, when it's all said and done, to know that we've got stuff growing in the yard of our lives that we admire every day. They look beautiful from a distance but we'd best beware of getting too close.

Some things we're never meant to be touched by human hands.

Kind of reminds me of another story about two people in a garden.

Hmmm....