The past year ended with a human tragedy almost beyond comprehension. A massive earthquake sent tidal waves crashing upon the shores of several countries with enormous loss of life. The death toll is already over 120,000 people and still climbing. Thousands more may never be found. The world is rushing aid to the stricken areas, trying to save an estimated 5 million people homeless and in danger of dying from disease and lack of food and clean water.

In this country, flooding is ravaging the west coast, with a rare tornado reported among the other storm damage. The news anchors have described the events as being of Biblical proportions, a strangely somber reference not usually heard these days. It does remind me of the prophecies about the winds and waves roaring and men's hearts failing them for what is coming upon them in the last days.

Another interesting parallel to Bible prophecy is the information about the earthquake being powerful enough that several islands were actually moved a significant distance. The earthquakes of the Tribulation period are supposed to be strong enough that they would do just that. The spattering of remarks trying to blame the tidal waves on global warming has a hollow ring to it, a feeble attempt to magnify mankind's effects on the planet wracked with wild weather and increasing numbers of great earthquakes.

This earthquake was estimated to be one of the largest, if not the largest, in human history. It was strong enough to shake the planet and shorten the day length by a small fraction of a second. There are also prophecies that God would shorten the day length in the Tribulation to prevent the total destruction of mankind. It has given me a great deal to think about.

On a less lofty level of concerns, the weather here has flipped from an icy deep freeze to balmy spring weather. It is now in the low 60's with light rain falling, a drastic change from the arctic lows and solid ice sheets of the past week. It just adds to my bewilderment about how to gauge the weather and the coming of the earliest planting dates for the garden. I pulled the frost-killed pea vines from their wire cages in shirt-sleeve weather only a few days after they perished.

The new seeds have arrived and the outdoor weather beckons invitingly, but I know that it is many weeks too early to even think about sowing the first spinach. I've still held off starting cabbages, and now the earliest broccoli starting date has arrived. The outdoor cabbages and a few ground hugging turnip greens did survive the freeze, but the broccoli plants were severely damaged and appear to be lost.

Whenever I start thinking about starting more seeds for the spring garden, it seems that there is some disaster somewhere, often unseen in magnitude in past history where it happened. Still, the crocuses and daffodils will poke their noses into the garden air eventually and so must I if I want to see any harvest at all. It just has the unsettling feel of tiptoeing onto ice when the gardening dates show up in the organizer list as I click through the dates to see what is coming up in the near future.

The sweater knitting has prospered in the icy seclusion, though. I did finish the red and green sweater in time to ship it with the other sweaters, and I've finished a cream and gold sweater and started a blue sweater. The soothing flow of yarn looping through stitches does help to provide some calm.

I'm torn between the sweaters and other projects waiting to be done, though. I'm overdoing the knitting and my aching arms and fingers are warning me to switch to something else for a while, but I have all that free yarn that I'm committed to make into sweaters. I'd like to join in that dishcloth knit along, but every stitch for that could be made for a sweater. I've got enough cloth to finish that flannel quilt that has been waiting for well over a year now, and enough to start several new quilt tops as well as a series of quilt blocks that would make a nice feature on my new site.

How did I let that slide so long, I wonder to myself, knowing full well that it was the same way the other quilt was so long delayed. I know what to do, but I have too much to do. I can't quite still a feeling of urgency to finish up the highest priority projects, and that puts the children's sweaters, the websites, and the gardening tasks at the top of the list. I'll have to ignore the weather reports and start the seedlings under the calm climate of the grow lights, then get back to knitting. God is still watching over me, even if the world is restlessly groaning a great deal these days.