Category Archives: Notes

725. Difficult times require difficult decisions. ~Jim Bunning

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The struggle of life is one of our greatest blessings.
It makes us patient, sensitive, and Godlike.
It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering,
it is also full of the overcoming of it.
~Helen Keller

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Last year was an exacting and troublesome one for me in several ways. Fortunately now that my knee has been replaced, one of the stressful, problematic issues has been successfully resolved. However, in it’s stead another health issue that had been under control for the last half of the year, has raised its ugly head again and gone to an even more distressing level. For decades I’ve been dealing with a neurological disorder called Restless Leg Syndrome. And since in the last few weeks it as been very difficult for me to manage this disorder, I’ve made an appointment today with a new neurologist, but I couldn’t get in to see him until the end of the month. Until then I am and more than likely will continue to get little sleep or be able sit at anything for very long. As a result, I’ve not been able to read many, if any, of your posts for a while now and until this issue improves or is resolved that will sadly continue. I am, however, going to try to continue posting something each day and will do that as long as I am able to; I will also try to answer any comments I get about my posts in a timely fashion. In the meantime, I hope you take good care of yourselves and please know that I am, at least, browsing through your posts as they appear in my inbox even if I am unable sit long enough to hit “like” or comment on them. The Lord, as always, will be with me on this difficult and exhausting journey, and I pray that I will be up to par soon so that I am able to re-engage with each and every one of you. In the meantime, love and hugs to you all, my little band of wonderful readers and followers, Natalie

Has anyone else ever noticed how the colors of life just sort of seem to fade from your days when things become emotionally and physically arduous? Perhaps that’s why I love flowers so much. When all else is gray and gloomy, their bright, colorful faces shine still in the dark days and nights of the soul.

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So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. ~Isaiah 41:10 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

724. Earth, thou great footstool of our God, who reigns on high; thou fruitful source of all our raiment, life, and food; our house, our parent, and our nurse. ~Isaac Watts

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So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to thee.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil
of this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world is made,
and the stars that blaze in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge we bear.
~Jan Richardson

“Or speak to the earth, and let it teach you; and let the fish of the sea declare to you. “Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this… ~Job 12:7-9    ✝

*Image via Pinterest

723. Bee to blossom, moth to flame; each to his passion; what’s in a name? ~Helen Hunt Jackson

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I wanted to know the name
of every stone and flower
and insect and bird and beast.
I wanted to know 
where it got its color,
where it got its life…
~George Washington Carver

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The real name of this beauty is Tradescantia, but it’s commonly called Spiderwort, a name not my favorite for two reasons. First, I’m not a big fan of spiders and secondly as a kid I had lots of warts. And so to put those two irksome things together for such a colorful and interesting bloom seems to me to do it a terrible injustice. But then it’s real name is a tad hard to spell and to remember for that matter too. So what’s one to do? Though it got its color and its life from the Lord, it was mortal men who gave it such a dreadful name; perhaps now it is time for a change, and one day I shall just have to come up with a name of my own for this lovely, small, but fetching flower.

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Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed bearing plants and trees on the land that bear much fruit with seed in it, according to the various kinds.” And it was so…And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” ~Genesis1:11 and Genesis 1:20  ✝

**The top photo is one I took in my yard yesterday; the others I found on Pinterest.

The Peace of Wild Things

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ivonprefontaine's avatarTeacher as Transformer

I have many favourite poets that I always return to at various times. Wendell Berry is one of those poets. The words inspire me to pause, soak them in, and not rush on too quickly.

Sometimes just experiencing the primal world before I think about it is wonderful and filled with wonder as miracles show themselves slowly. It leaves me thoughtful and full of thought as I just, ponder, do not tax my life too much with forethought.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into…

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Blessing in the Chaos

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radiatingblossom's avatarRadiating Blossom ~ Flowers & Words

To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.

Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,

that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.

Let what distracts you
cease.
Let what divides you
cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.

Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.

~~ Jan Richardson ~~

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722. I think the names of colors are at the edge, between where language fails and where it’s at its most powerful. ~A.S. Byatt

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My skin is kind of, sort of brownish
Pinkish yellowish white.
My eyes are greyish blueish green,
But I’m told they look orange in the night.
My hair is reddish blondish brown,
But it’s silver when it’s wet.
And all the colors I am inside
Have not been invented yet.
~Shel Silverstein

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A German artist named Hans Hoffman noted that “the whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color.” And I’m so glad it is a realm drenched in color into which we are born and that we are blessed with eyes that can distinguish the millions of hues therein. Initially, one might think in terms of the basics like: grey, red, green, blue, yellow, brown, orange, purple and pink. But then what about dark and light shades of all those colors that take us into the realm of shades like hunter green, cherry red, hot pink, cobalt blue, lemon yellow and so on. Even a rainbow is a continuum of hues as one color overlaps the neighboring color, is it not?

Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father, David…He made the curtain of blue, purple, and crimson yarn and fine linen, with cherubim worked into it. ~2 Chronicles 3:1 and 3:14   ✝

721. What a benediction is this fragrance of the early morning! The vernal grass fills the whole atmosphere as with a shower of sweetness. ~Sarah Smiley

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The moment when you first wake up 
i
n the morning is the most wonderful
of the twenty-four hours.
No matter how weary or dreary you may feel,
you possess the certainty that,
during the day that lies before you,
absolutely anything may happen.
~Monica Baldwin
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The Gardener’s Morning
The robin’s song at daybreak
Is a clarion call to me.
Get up and get out in the garden,
For the morning hours flee.
I cannot resist the summons,
What earnest gardener could?
For the golden hours of morning
Get into the gardener’s blood.
The magic spell is upon me,
I’m glad that I did not wait;
For life’s at its best in the morning,
As you pass through the garden gate.
~Howard Dolf
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ~Lamentations 3:22-23   ✝
**Robin image via Pinterest