Quickly after sharing my thoughts on EZE 47:12 and REV 22:2, I got a nudge to ask Chat GPT to create an image of the tree. It was quite a strange nudge. When the image returned, I felt a surge and a reminder of what was written on my own “tree island”.

“Carol, you’re a river of love—-calm, deep and always moving forward.”

When Anna gave me my felt island in early July, I was nudged to use a chalk marker and write PSA 1:3. It made a sense that day but now evolves into a much deeper meaning. My elevated tree and streams from July now makes perfect sense.

This morning, Brother Gary stopped by the shop, and somehow the conversation circled back to the river again — that same one Ezekiel saw, that same one flowing from the throne in Revelation.

He told me about their family vacation on Alabama Shores. He and his wife still pray the rosary together every morning. Last week was different because they prayed it together, out loud on the beach, while facing the rising sun. 

There’s something sacred about a husband and wife speaking faith into the same wind — the marital covenant magnifying every word.  And while they prayed, Gary whispered a simple request: “Lord, if it’s Your will, let us see a dolphin.”

Within ten minutes, the water broke and there it was — a shimmering answer to a small, holy wish. Seeing Gary’s eyes light up like a kid at Christmas was precious.

Later that evening, as the sun slipped behind the horizon, their youngest, little Miss Sadie, looked at the sky and said something to the effect of , “God is an amazing artist.”

Miss Sadie is 100% correct! The same Artist who colored that sky also paints His presence in our ordinary days.  I thought about my own little tree on the island — how it stands between the banks like the tree of life, roots deep in the current, leaves reaching toward the light.

I see God almost everywhere. I can’t lie and say I see Him in everyone. I just do my job and search for Jesus in everyone I meet.

I came back to settle into Psalm 1:3 for the day. Anna did not write Scripture under my island. However, her heart did write the spirit of the matter in different words.

That verse is the echo of everything God placed in my heart and mind today. The righteous tree, the river of life, the healing leaves — they’re all telling the same story: stay close to the Source.  The branch doesn’t force fruit; it just carries what the Vine supplies.

So I sit here with happy tears again, remembering Brother Gary’s dolphin, Miss Sadie’s sunset, and my little tree by the water.  Lord, bring the grandmother peace, as well as Anna and her husband.

The river still flows.

The branches still carry life.

And God — the Artist of sunrises, sunsets, dolphins, healing leaves and everything under the sun—-keeps painting His presence into every moment that stays still long enough to notice.

Thank you, Father God, for sending your son to die for humanity. We surely didn’t deserve such a beautiful gift. Thank you for reminding me who I am to you and in you. I love you.