This afternoon I took a much needed break and sat still for about an hour on my back porch.  There was a gentle breeze blowing across the lake, the birds were chirping and singing, the hummingbirds were flitting and the squirrel had abandoned my bird feeder for a bit.  Never fear, he will be back once I go back inside.

I had just finished using the leaf blower to blow the deck clean of cobwebs, birdseed and these little teeny tiny balls that have been dropping from a tree that is next to the deck.

To say that these little ball things are annoying is an understatement.  This is one of the messiest trees I have seen next to the River Birch tree that is always shedding something.  I am usually barefoot  and these little guys hurt when I walk on them.

They are prolific and just when I manage to get one area free of them more drop down to make their presence known.  

The problem with trying to rid of them is that they stick in the ruts of the boards on the deck.  They are the perfect size and once they are in there a simple blow from the leaf blower does not dislodge them.  

They are essentially stuck in a rut.

Hundreds of them.

Things like this always make me stop and think.

I know.  I think about weird things sometimes but these little balls got me to thinking about how often “I” get stuck in a rut.  Oh–I travel a bit and have had some amazing opportunities that have popped up for me in my life but sometimes my spiritual life is what gets stuck in a rut.

A quick prayer.  A short devotional here and there.  A few words jotted down in my journal that are inspired by a Bible verse.  But quite often those things are lacking and I realize that the rut that I am stuck in is one that needs to be broken.

What happens when I break out of my rut?  Only time will tell but hopefully I will begin to sprout.  Maybe like this errant piece of birdseed that found its way to another crack in my decking.