Making A Connection — Take a look around you; evidence of God’s grace is right outside your window.

By Caralee Adams

Signs of hope can come from unexpected places. For Thrivent Financial member Susan Yount of Matthews, North Carolina, God’s character and Word revealed in nature hold the key to renewal.

When looking out over the seemingly endless ocean, Yount reflects on God’s love and eternal life, abounding without end. A starfish with an arm growing back reminds her of regeneration and how we are made new in Christ. A flower bulb is a powerful symbol of the resurrection; it looks dead, but when you plant it and shower it with God’s sunshine and water, new life emerges.

“All of creation is a testimony to God. Look for the connections,” says Yount, 50, a Lutheran Community Services specialist in the Southeast Region of Thrivent Financial. Yount loves to share her insights about renewal and what the messages of hope reveal through nature in the children’s ministries at her church.

Yount is married to Jim (her “gem”), and has two children, Elizabeth, 19, a freshman in college, and Andrew, 10. One Easter, after Yount’s family had experienced a particularly challenging year, they went away to a beach house on the Isle of Palms in South Carolina. After arriving, she sat down, looked out the window and caught sight of a beautiful pine tree just outside. Although she had seen the tree before on their regular trips to the house, it looked different this time. The newly forming pine cones seemed to cover the tree with crosses—a shape conifers form during the cone-developing process. The overall affect was profound.

“I just wept,” Yount recalls. “He gave me that fullness right when I needed it.” The crosses were a reminder of God’s love, sacrifice, promise and hope, she says.

She quickly told her family, and they all gathered at the window in awe. She called her prayer partner, and later shared the experience as a devotional with her team at work. “All nature sings and manifests Christ,” says Yount. “At that moment it was an absolute assurance that all was taken care of, and I was to count on Him for the future.”

You must be present with God and tune into His extraordinary nearness in ordinary things to find their spiritual value. Yount quotes from Col. 3:2: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

To stay connected with her faith, Yount remains in Bible study, has placed scriptural reminders throughout her home and established small but meaningful daily rituals. Morning showers and a scallop shell by her kitchen sink remind her that she is a new creation washed clean through Him. Framed Bible verses (Deut. 6: 4-7) over the door to their garage include the command to love God in all you do—in your going out and coming in. In the car on the way to school, she and Andrew sing and pray together. At night, she makes the sign of the cross on his forehead and recites the promise of his baptism before he goes to sleep.

“God’s omnipresence—everywhere-ness—can keep us in a state of renewal, if we open our hearts, minds and souls,” says Yount.

Caralee Adams is a freelance writer in Bethesda, Maryland, who specializes in personal finance, education and parenting issues.

First Steps
Log on to www.lutheransonline.com and access links to uplifting daily devotions from your Lutheran church body. You also can find an online community of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans members to chat with about matters of faith.