The Crown of the Year

It's been Montana Driving Week. I've made three trips: to Forsyth and back (200 miles), Absarokee and back (100 miles), and Bozeman and back (300 miles). This state is beautiful. As I drive I am filled to the brim with thankfulness that I can live in such a lovely place. Right now is a particularly joyous time to drive, because I can see the land flourishing. The crops look magnificent - wheat, corn, sugar beets. The hay fields have all been mowed and are filled with dozens of giant round hay bales (one of my favorite sights is a mown hay field). Even the trains of gleaming coal cars filled to the brim with jet black fuel seem more abundant this year.

As I was sharing my delight with my dad today, he pointed me to Psalm 65, which describes the gifts I am experiencing and praises the Giver: 

 ⁹ You care for the land and water it;
   you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water
   to provide the people with grain,
   for so you have ordained it.^[c]
10 You drench its furrows
   and level its ridges;
you soften it with showers
   and bless its crops.
¹¹ You crown the year with your bounty,
   and your carts overflow with abundance.
¹² The grasslands of the desert overflow;
   the hills are clothed with gladness.
¹³ The meadows are covered with flocks
   and the valleys are mantled with grain;
   they shout for joy and sing.

It really does feel that the year is crowned with bounty and that the grasslands of our dry, arid state are overflowing. I shout for joy and sing!