1282. When I dance I forget everything else and just feel completely happy. ~Katherine Jenkins

When you dance, your purpose
is not to get to a certain
place on the floor. It’s to enjoy
each step along the way.
~Wayne Dyer

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If I Were
There are lots of ways to dance
and to spin, sometimes it just
starts my feet first then my entire body,
I am spinning no one can see it
but it is happening. I am so glad to be alive,
I am so glad to be loving and loved.
Even if I were close to the finish, even if
I were at my final breath,
I would be here to take a stand,
bereft of such astonishments,
but for them.
~Excerpt from a poem
by Mary Oliver

Again you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful. ~Excerpt from Jeremiah 31:4  ✝

**Image via Pinterest; special effects done on iPiccy and Movavi

1145. Have patience with all things, but, first of all with yourself. ~Saint Francis de Sales

 Patience is the
companion of wisdom.
~Augustine of Hippo

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Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ~Colossians 3:12  ✝

**Image via Pinterest; text box added by Natalie

991. The autumn air is clear, The autumn moon is bright. Fallen leaves gather and scatter… ~Li Bai

That’s no December sky!
Surely ’tis still June
Holding her state on high
As queen of the noon.
For only the tree-tops are bare
Clear-cut in the perfect air…
~Edited and adapted excerpt from a poem
by Robert Fuller Murray

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Now the seasons are closing
their files on each of us,
the heavy drawers full of certificates
rolling back into the tree trunks,
a few old papers  flocking away.
Someone we loved has fallen from
our thoughts, making a little, glittering
splash like a bicycle pushed by a breeze.
Otherwise, not much has happened;
we fell in love again, finding
that one red leaf on the wind.
~Edited and adapted poem
by Ted Kooser

He (God) made the moon to mark the seasons… ~Excerpt from Psalm 104:19  ✝

422. The wings of angels are often found on the backs of the least likely people. ~Eric Honeycutt

Angels deliver fate to our doorstep–
and anywhere else it is needed.
~Jessi Lane Adams

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My back and knee are hurting more so than usual today, and I’ve been fighting off feeling sorry for myself. Thankfully it doesn’t take long for me to snap out of that invitation to a pity party when I remember something that happened a year or so ago. James and I were going to a movie downtown, and as we rounded a corner, I who was lost in a “blue funk” heard a voice I didn’t recognize say something. I looked around to see who it was and encountered a man missing both legs sitting in a wheelchair. And he, a homeless and crippled black man, said again with a huge smile on his face, “God bless you!”

Amazing! A man, asking nothing of or from me, with no home, not knowing where he’d sleep that night nor where his next meal was coming from was asking the Lord to bless me, an obviously ambulatory and much more financially secure white woman. Now, how glad am I that I remember that man, his smile, and his blessing on days like today when I’m inclined to feel discouraged from my long and ongoing bouts of chronic pain. Whenever I think on it, it reminds me that every day is an opportunity to honor God for His gifts and His “angels unawares.” I pray that wherever this man is today that he’s greeted with a host of smiles and that he still finds reasons to rejoice and be glad in the day the Lord has given him.  For how well clothed in God’s compassion was he the day our paths crossed!

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. ~Colossians 3:12   ✝

Thank you, Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

** Mixed media image via Pinterest