Here's Your Sign

Currently Reading Plenty: One Man, One Woman and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally By Alisa Smith, J.B. Mackinnon

"Epileptics know by signs when attacks are imminent and take precautions accordingly; we must do the same in regard to anger. " Seneca

“He that is thy friend indeed, he will help thee in thy need:
If thou sorrow, he will weep; if thou wake, he cannot sleep.
Thus of every grief in heart, he with thee does bear a part.
These are certain signs to know faithful friend from flattering foe.”

William Shakespeare

'For business reasons, I must preserve the outward signs of sanity." Mark Twain

“When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope” Henri Nouwen

Here are a few signs from around our vicinity and within our lives.

I swear this is exactly what I thought Charlie Brown in Schultz's Peanuts comic was going to do when he grew up. And look at that, he lives in my town!

Some signs are just plain sad.

Some signs, like the above and below, give good advice...



These two signs show gas prices, expressing how much they have been jumping around lately. Gas prices have reached as high as $3.17 a gallon and been as low as $2.75. (I wish I had a picture of that one - I'd frame it! Oh when will gas prices go down?!.)

The sign of a good sermon...

A serious resoultion to make, one which can become perpetual...

Some signs are encouragement, not only to trusting that God is in charge of everything, but in a testimony shared.

Some signs are just plain funny. My kids laugh for 2 or 3 minutes everytime after passing this sign in town, using a deep voice for God, or coming up with arguements to hear God say to stop it.

I could call my husband the Pie Dude from this sign and just smile and smile and smile. Who couldn't be happy working in Dave's Pie Shack with the Pie Dude himself?

This sign is from a city in which we used to live, a pic taken quite a while ago. I enjoy its humor, like the knock-knock joke variety. Having a blast at the quarry...yep, still funny to me.

My favorite, though, is one I don't have as a picture. I couldn't get a good focus on because it was so large. As I am driving through these winding, rural roads I pass this one barn a few times a week. Illuminating the night, with giant red letters covering nearly the entire barn is glowing, "HALLELUJAH! WHAT A SAVIOR!"

When I am tired, cranky, frustrated, empty I see this enormous sign and begin to pray, "Oh Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you." Gratitude is a very humbling attitude. I would be lost and broken without my Savior. It is a sign of hope for me, a physical reminder that there is hope today because of Jesus.

I am confident of this: I would have given up long ago if I had not seen the LORD of hope in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD: be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:13-14