Tag Archives: Children

383. Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons. ~Ruth Ann Schabacker

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Pleasure is spread through the earth
In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.
~William Wordsworth

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My Aunt Johnnie worked for a shoe company, and so my sisters and I nearly always got shoes from her on our birthdays and at Christmas. But because a shoe box is so recognizable, and she, like me, hated being predictable, she put things other than shoes in the shoe boxes and the shoes in more unlikely boxes. As a result we had no idea what her gifts were until the day came to untie the ribbons and open them up. However, as Aunt Johnnie was a good and generous woman of means, we knew, even before we opened them, that we’d love and be grateful for whatever the gifts were.

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Scripture tells us that “this is the day the Lord has made” and then implores us to “rejoice and be glad in it.” Since each day is a gift from God and since He is a good and generous Father with unlimited means, we can rest assured that there is inherent goodness in all our days. But it is only with a grateful heart that in “untying the ribbon” and opening up the gift we’ll find the miraculous not only on the outstanding days but also in the common ones and those filled with trials.

Thought to ponder for the day: “I have nothing to give that was not a gift to me.”

If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him. Matthew 7:11 ✝

Thank you, Lord 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!

** Images via Pinterest

365. Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.

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The moment a child is born,
the mother is also born.
She never existed before.
The woman existed,
but the mother, never.
A mother is something
absolutely new.
~Chandra Mohan Jain

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In everyone’s life,
at some time,
our inner fire flickers
as if to go out.
It is then burst into flame
by an encounter
with another human being.
We should be thankful
for those people who
rekindle the inner spirit.
~Edited and adapted quote by Albert Schweitzer

This is an old photo of my daughter and I; she was about 2 years old when it was taken by her dad who was experimenting with special effects in his dark room. It has always been one of my favorite captures of the two of us, and so I’m posting it today as a tribute to all the “special effects” she has brought and continues to bring into our lives. It was her birth 5 days before my 30th birthday that rekindled my imperiled inner spirit, and so I celebrate her life today and every day! What an amazing gift from God she was and is!  Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord. ~Psalm 113:9  ✝

Thank you, Lord 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!

355. Forget diamonds, wear a crown of daisies. ~Sandra O’Connell

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… At my feet the white-petaled daisies display
the small suns of their center piece their–if you don’t mind
my saying so–their hearts. Of course
I could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale and
narrow and hidden in their roots. What do I know,
But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,
to see what is plain;
what the sun lights up willingly…
~Excerpt from “Daisies” by Mary Oliver

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He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me… It’s funny how some things, even those learned in early childhood, never fade from memory. I’ll bet most, if not all of you, remember pulling the petals off a daisy and reciting this ditty over and over again until the final petal gave up the supposed truth. Georgia O’Keefe, the American artist who painted those amazing, large-format pictures of enlarged blossoms, said of them, “When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in a city rush around so they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.” Why would she feel that way? I think it’s because there is just something in the “world of a flower” that exudes sanctitude and goodness, a revelation that sheds light into the mysteries of life. And its words seem to say over and over again, “I speak of a divine and devoted lover. I tell tales of a garden created in a faraway place, a long time ago. I describe a tragic fall therein from divine Grace. I relate attempts to redeem the lost children of subsequent generations. I narrate stories of a Savior who did His father’s bidding. I share the story of the Christ’s sacrifice and His magnanimous offer of redemption. I talk of holy men bound to spread the Messiah’s story who, as they moved from one monastery garden to another, spread species of my kind from place to place. I inspire men of rhymes to write poetry about me that speaks to human hearts. I sing hopeful, prophetic melodies of my faithful return year and year, millennia upon millennia. I whisper words from above of unending love into listening ears. Quite simply, if you look at me and hold me, cherish me and revere me, I will make known to you the Creator of heaven and earth, and you will forever bless His holy name for He is the One who answered once and for all your childhood query.

But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever. ~Psalm 52:8 ✝

Thank you, Lord 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!

341. So pure, so still the starry heaven, so hushed the brooding air, I could hear the sweep of an angel’s wings… ~Edna Dean Proctor

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Our Lord has written
the promise of resurrection,
not in books alone,
but in every leaf in springtime.
~Martin Luther

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Creation is a perpetual outpouring of God’s creative and loving selfhood. The sacred isn’t merely above us but forever within the entire body of Creation. The holy sound of God resonates in everything. The earth gives us reason to feel His gracious hand upon us while the forces of heaven sustain us. These realities are meant to stir in humanity a sense of belonging and in turn spark a desire to seek the Lord, but should they not, finding God in Christ is something even the blind can do. Our Creator sent us His son over 2,000 years ago, and He came to be our memory and to remind us of who we are and to whom we belong. Jesus is a revelation of our loving Father and His Kingdom’s intention. Christ offers salvation to the children of the Light who are subjected to temptation by malevolent forces, and He is a leader who directs God’s children into righteous rhythms of life, into a willingness to serve others, and into the dance of life–a dance in which the whole universe partners.

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.  ~Ephesians 1:17  ✝

Thank you, Lord 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!

313. And if tonight my soul may find her peace in sleep, and sink in good oblivion, and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower then I have dipped again in God, and new-created. ~Excerpt from a poem by D. H. Lawrence

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The last fling of winter is over…
The earth, the soil itself,
has a dreaming quality about it.
It is warm now to the touch;
it has come alive;
it hides secrets that in a moment,
in a little while, it will tell.
~Donald Culross Peattie

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In winter the earth sleeps peacefully and sinks “in good oblivion” as it readies itself for another spring.  Then morning after morning upon arrival of the vernal equinox, the “new-opened flowers dipped again in God, ” as it were, appear.  It seems to me to be the same for us in the changing seasons of our lives for we, too, are dipped again in God whenever we are “new-created” for the next phase of our lives.

“…then I must know that still I am in the hands of the unknown God,
He is breaking me down to His own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.”
~Excerpt from same poem by D. H. Lawrence

In early civilizations the fact that food supplies were soon to be restored was one of the reasons spring’s coming was especially revered.  Later on it became significant with the spread of Christianity because Easter falls on the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the vernal equinox.  Thus springtime reveals the hidden secrets of the soil, and the risen Christ reveals the secrets hidden in our souls if we but follow Him and listen.

The secret things belong to the Lord, our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.  ~Deuteronomy 29:29   ✝

304. The sun has come out…and the air is vivid with the coming spring’s light. ~Adapted excerpt from Byron Caldwell Smith

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Let me arise and open the gate,
to breathe the wild warm air…
To let Life in, and to let out Death.
~Violet Fane

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Blow, Breath of heaven, blow!  Blow through the land and over the waters.  Carry away death’s dark vapors and let life in.  Let every mountain, plain, and valley break forth in gladness.  Let the “wild warm air” of coming spring spark life in every nook and cranny.  Let the ceaseless waves of the seas and the rushing currents of rivers roar with renewed passion for life.  Let the clouds suckle earth’s waters and send rain from heaven to moisten the earth and let loose her flowering.  Let life, whole and vibrant, dazzle us anew.  Blow, sweet Breath of heaven, blow!  Blow through Your children and take us down to the bottom of our souls where You, O God, the Breath of all things, are present “deep within all that has life.”  We who have traversed icy winter’s dark domain yearn to feel your warmth and vitality course in us and all of life again.  We long for earth and sky’s vast array of bright colors to take away winter’s preponderance of grays and browns.  O Holy One, come; let us see You “in every emanation of Creation’s life.”  We give you glory and thanks for all that You are, for Your ever-lasting goodness and never-ending love, “for creatures stirring forth,” “for plant forms stretching and unfolding,” “for the stable earth and its solid rocks.”  O blessed Breath of heaven, arise and blow life afresh through Eden’s gates!  (Quoted phrases from SOUNDS OF THE ETERNAL by J. Philip Newell)

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth.  ~Psalm 33:6   ✝

**photos via Pinterest

297. Hand in hand, with fairy grace, will we sing, and bless this place. ~William Shakespeare, English poet and playwright

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No child but must remember laying his head in the grass,
staring into the infinitesimal forest
and seeing it grow populous with fairy armies.
~Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish poet

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Digitalis, from the Latin Digitabulum, a thimble, derives its common name from the shape of its flowers that resemble the finger of a glove.  It’s a flower we call Foxglove, which delights to grow in deep hollows and woody dells.  However, it was originally called Folksglove because that’s where they, fairies or “good folk,” were thought to live.  Folksglove is one of the oldest names for Digitalis (Foxglove) and is mentioned in a list of plants as old as the time of Edward III.  The earliest known form of the word is the Anglo-Saxon foxes glofa (the glove of the fox, and the Norwegian name Revbielde that translates to Foxbell alludes to the Fox.  It is a name which may have come about from a northern legend about bad fairies who supposedly gave the blossoms of Digitalis to foxes to be put upon their toes so as to soften their tread when prowling amongst the roosts.

I adore Foxglove and believe no other flower in the garden lends itself better to stories of fairies and elves than it does.  Its dangling thimbles or gloves or bells or fingers or whatever one might call them look like enchanted, magical places where children would naturally look for the “wee folk” to lurk.  Nor is it surprising that there have been suppositions claiming the mottling in the flowers mark, like the spots on butterfly wings and on the tails of peacocks and pheasants, where elves have placed their fingers.  Though no longer a child, I have to agree in part with the writer Charles de Lint who penned, “We call them faerie.  We don’t believe in them.  Our loss.”  Sometimes, it does one a world of good to remember what it was like to be an imaginative child, full of awe and wonder and given to flights of fantasy.

Happy is he who still loves
something he loved in the nursery:
He has not been broken in two by time;
he is not two men, but one,
and he has saved not only his soul but his life.
~G. K. Chesterton, English writer, poet,
and lay theologian

If we opened our mind with enjoyment, we might
find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side.
We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam,
and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
~Samuel Smiles, Scottish author

May the Lord give you increase, both you and your children.  May you be blessed by the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  ~Psalm 115:14-15   ✝

295. Of all God’s gifts to the sighted man, color is the holiest, the most divine… ~John Ruskin

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In the house of words was a table of colors.
They offered themselves in great fountains,
and each poet took the color he needed:
lemon yellow or sun yellow,
ocean blue or smoke blue,
crimson red, blood red, wine red.
~Eduardo Galeano

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What a glorious tangerine and white dream is the daffodil in the photograph, and holiness indeed is written all over it!  As God speaks to mankind through the Bible and Creation, we can see that He values color, the intent of which seems, like all else, to be that its hallowed voice draw His children closer to Him.  Color appears first in holy writ in the opening pages of Genesis when God fathered the whiteness of light on day 1 of the Creation story.  Then on the second day the Lord created expanses to separate water from water, and both the sky and the reflection of the heavens in it are shades of blue.  On day 3 He created earth’s green vegetation.  Day 4 brought the placement of lights that governed the heavens, and day’s greater light, the sun, is yellow; up close pictures of the sun also show reds and oranges in its make up.  Fish and great sea monsters swam the seas and birds took flight on the fifth day, and whales and sharks have been seen as hallmarks of an ancient pagan idol symbolized by the color orange.  The sixth day brought the creation of man and animals; the name Adam means red and the blood that courses through the veins of man and beast alike is red.  Day 7, the Sabbath, was sanctified by God whose robes and glory are perennially symbolized by white, and later when atoning for man’s sins His son, Jesus, wore a purple robe.

“And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.  God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.  Genesis 1:30-31  ✝

269. Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world and leave only a margin by which we see the blot. ~George Eliot

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You shall see them
on a beautiful quarto page,
where a neat rivulet of text shall meander
through a meadow of margin.
~Excerpt from “School for Scandal” by
Richard Brinsley Sheridan

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Margins–our lives are lived within all kinds of marginal edges.  In botany and entomology scientists talk of margins when they cite data about borders around leaves or the borders of insect wings.  The earth itself has what I think of as margins.  For example, phenomena like mountains, rivers, forests, or oceans hold things within or without; walled constructs built by the sea are held by nature and man.  Even our written documents and texts are kept inside a border of blank space called a margin.  In literary works poets and novelists speak of garden walls as the margins around growing spaces.  The margins around my backyard gardening spaces as well as the ones in public gardens I visit are fences.  Interestingly, at one time the margins around my yard were solely the fence lines, but now it is contained within its confines in places by an assortment of trees, some planted by human hands, others that sprang up by their own devices.

In the scriptural passage below God is telling the people of Jerusalem that although they are in a city without walls, He will protect them by being the barrier between them and their enemies.  The Lord does that for His children even when they misuse the reins of free will to wander poorly chosen worldly paths. Fortunately for us we never get so far down those potentially dangerous paths that we are out from under the spread of Yahweh’s mighty wings of grace.  When asked, He will pull us into a walled sanctuary where His forgiveness is an ever-standing offer for contrite hearts.  And as a fellow blogger noted, He walls our hearts with His love.

“And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,” declares the Lord, “and I will be its glory within.  ~Zechariah 2:5  ✝

268. “The true meaning of America, you ask? It’s in a Texas rodeo, in the sound of laughing children, in a …” ~Audie Murphy, one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of World War II, actor, songwriter, and horse breeder

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I wanted to be like my father,
who was a cattle man and rodeo roper.
And that was – he was my hero,
and I wanted to be more like him.
~Dave Brubeck, American jazz pianist and composer

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Shortly after the beginning of the year, a sign starts flashing “this thing is legendary,” and huge trucks loaded with equipment roll onto the grounds of Will Rogers Coliseum.  But before the livestock comes, before the vendors come, before the riders come, before the spectators come, the carnival trucks are unloaded and construction of the Stock Show midway begins. Soon afterwards the Ferris Wheel and other rides rise high above the surrounding fences, the midway opens, and the “oldest continual running livestock show and rodeo” becomes a daily part of everyday life here in Fort Worth once again.  And each year when I see the Ferris Wheel on the stock show grounds, I’m transported back to my childhood in Long Beach, California, and that stretch of beach with the amusement park about a mile down from our house.  Even though I was forbidden to go there alone, the call of the midway fun and the cotton candy was just too strong to resist.  So from time to time between the ages of 10 and 12 I’d steal away to Rainbow Pier with a few dimes in my pocket and secretly partake of the Pike’s allurements.  I must have picked my days well and not tarried any longer than I should because my disobedient treks to the Pike faded into obscurity undetected.

Our move to Texas when I was 13 not only brought an end to my life in southern California but also to my childhood.  Its halcyon days, however, continue to be my “precious, kingly possessions” and a treasure house of cherished memories.  And I hold fast still to the pleasures and memories of that portion of my life which was filled with a constancy of joy that has never since been equalled.  But then perhaps, it is not the constancy of joy that changed, just the earnestness of the seeker to look for it because according to Scripture we have a promise from God that joy comes in the morning, every morning.

He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouts of joy.  ~Job 8:21  ✝