Heart Warming

"Oh, do you have a wishing well?"  I questioned, looking out the glass door onto our son's patio.  Maybe it's a planter, I thought, as I admired the handsome, stone structure. 

"No, it's a fire pit," our son explained.  "We built it  so we could sit out there and enjoy a fire these nice evenings."  Well, no wonder I didn't remember it.  I remarked what a good job they had done, and he said they'd built it from a kit!  After supper, we all gathered around it to roast marshmallows for s'mores.

We were at Trevor's and Jennifer's house in Texas to spend the night before going with Jamie's family to the fair the next day. We'd had a wonderful meal they had prepared, and now it was so pleasant to enjoy laughing and talking around the cheerful flames of the firepit.  The delicious s'mores were a perfect dessert, stickiness aside, for grown-ups and the youngest among us, too.

I experienced de ja vu last night as we again sat around a fire roasting weiners and marshmallows, this time at our son, Greg's new place, a farm/ranch right here at home.  We were invited out for a Friday night bonfire, but though a weather front with high wind gusts prevented a fire that grand, we still  managed an impromptu cook-out, a garden-wagon serving as a table holding chips, drinks, marshmallows and the makings for hot dogs. 

As appetites were satisfied, a sweet musical harmony emanated from the shadows as the quartet of girls, from kindergarten to college, sang along with portable music someone produced.  Though a livelier tune, the notes drifting on the night air seemed akin to a  cowboy ballad at our pasture picnic. Leaving the circle of warmth and light and driving away into the darkness, we could see the fire as only a small glow in the distance, but we knew it was providing light and warmth to those still  gathered in its borders.

There is something about a campfire that is welcoming.  Jesus sat on the shore with a breakfast fire he'd made for his disciples who'd had a bad night of fishing, which, with His advice, turned into an overwhelming catch.  John 21:9 says, "As soon as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread."  Then he called to them, "Come and dine."  The Bible says that none of them dared ask him who He was, knowing that it was the Lord.  This was one of the appearances Jesus made to them after his resurrection.  After they had eaten, Jesus had important words  and instructions for them.  Words come easily around a fire.