Belinda didn’t mind.

The winter landscape was white and cold with a brisk, biting wind.

Her two mittened hands clasped a stack of books. With eager footsteps she pressed on despite the freezing conditions.

It would only be moments. Just a few more, and she would be curled up with some hot tea before the fire, all ready to read!

The gentle song of a cardinal made Belinda lose her focus for a minute and slow her steps.

Lifting her head, she looked.

And looked.

 

The snow shimmered like a bowlful of cut glass frosted with milk. Evergreens stood laced with an ice you could barely see until the sun turned them to a spectacular display. Clouds tumbled across the blue dome overhead, swirling and twisting, bending and twirling.

She started to walk then. But slowly. Placing one foot before the other, as though hesitant to go on.

And she realized it all. Realized what she was missing. 

Those fabric-covered cream pages in her arm …they were lovely.

But this.

It was walking in a book. Seeing it live without assistance of the imagination.

Touching it, seeing it …living it.

What a marvelous book this was.

A book she’d almost missed.

“The earth, O LORD, is full of thy mercy:” …

Psalm 119:64a

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”

Psalm 19:1-4a