A book that I've been waiting for, "Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home," just walked in the front door for me. It's by Richard J. Foster, and Mr. Deboe clued me into this particular title... (Thanks! :-) Here I've been awaiting 5 months to read this. Awesome. Listen:

"As winter approaches each year, I like to watch our large maple in the backyard begin to lose its covering of summer green and take on a funereal brown. As the leaves drop, one by one all the irregularities and defects of the tree are exposed. The imperfections are always there, of course, but they have been hidden from my view by an emerald blanket. Now, however, it is denuded and desolate, and I can finally see its real condition."

Foster goes on further with this description and makes an analogy of transformation that I find both humbling and surprising.