Here I sit, on the back porch of my parents house in Alabama. The wind is rustling in the trees, and the rain is steadily falling. The sound is something we never get in Texas, we just don't have the trees. The Alabama trees are huge compared to Texas trees. All their leaves are either gone, or brown. It is a visible sign that death has come to the plant world in the form of winter. I find it interesting that GOd has designed this planet and set the "two great lights" (as Genesis 1 says) to delineate seasons and times, etc. These signs for the seasons are also reminders of our own spiritual lives. We died, with Christ and experienced the winter of our souls. Then we were raised to life with him, and experience a renewal like spring in the plant world. Only, our spring is eternal. It is never-ending. During this time when we celebrate God's gift to us -Jesus come as a baby- it is interesting how many environmental markers we miss of that same story. But, they were set in motion as a foreshadowing long before the story of Christ was recorded. God is remarkable.