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

April 18, 2014 by nataliescarberry

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

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!

329. Every April, God rewrites the Book of Genesis. ~Author Unknown

April 6, 2014 by nataliescarberry

That God once loved a garden
we learn in holy writ.
And seeing gardens in the Spring
I well can credit it.
~Winifred Mary Letts

There’s just something very reassuring about springtime, isn’t there? It tells us that what God put in place is still in place and that renewal is as much a part of life as anything else. Death may be undeniable, but so is life.

Come rain and speak of rivers and seas and holy healing waters.
Rise sun and speak of nurturing warmth and holy grace.
Blossom flower and speak of beauty and holy mysteries.
Hum bee and speak of faithful and ordained holy purpose.
Sing bird and speak of joy and grateful thanksgiving.
Beat heart and speak of pulsing rhythms and coursing holiness.
Move breath and speak of God within and holy beginnings.
Walk feet and speak of the road to Emmaus and holy encounters.
Twinkle stars and speak of the void filled by God’s holy, life-giving hands.
Speak silence of the Ancient of Days who’s waiting to be heard.
Shine light, drive darkness away, and speak of Christ’s redemptive work.
Come love and speak of peace and sacred surrender.

Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven. ~Psalm 85:11 ✝

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!

**Photo via Pinterest.

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

March 21, 2014 by nataliescarberry

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

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 ✝

309. Oh, the music in the air! An’ the joy that’s ivrywhere… ~Thomas Augustin Daly

March 17, 2014 by nataliescarberry

St. Patrick’s Day is an enchanted time-
a day to begin transforming
winter’s dreams into summer’s magic.
~Adrienne Cook

Color has returned to the earth in a few places here in our area; so St. Patrick’s Day has indeed brought a beginning measure of earth’s enchantments. And where there are but few flowers yet, there is the promise of many more.

I arise today through God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me.
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me.
God’s hand to guard me.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit, Christ when I arise,
Christ in every heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
~St. Patrick, Patron of Ireland.

Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations. The Lord is trustworthy in all He promises and faithful in all He does. Psalm 145:13 ✝

**Photos via Pinterest

267. God waits to win back His own flowers as gifts from man’s hands. ~Rabindranath Tagore

February 2, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Flowers don’t worry about how they are going to bloom.
They just open up and turn toward the light
and that makes them beautiful.
~Jim Carrey

Small children pick flowers for their mamas, men bring flowers to women they love, flowers are thrown on a stage after a stellar performance, a bride carries flowers down the aisle at her wedding, returning warriors were once showered with flower petals, a coffin may be surrounded by flowers at a funeral, and on and on go the roles that flowers play in our lives. We adore them and deem them worthy tokens of admiration, love, respect, and honor.

I’ve tended the soil and planted flowers for my own enjoyment and because I feel close to God in my garden, but until I read what Tagore said, I’d never thought about it as being a way to give gifts to God. I’ve known that how we live and what we do with our lives is to be an offering to the Lord and done for His glory, and now the thought of presenting Him with my posies as gifts adds an even greater level of joy to my labors in the garden. Although the time has not yet come for a miraculous flower like the one in the photo to bloom, I offer up this one from last year’s bounty as a thank offering to the Holy One for the coming of another spring and for His continual presence in my life and for all the ways He blesses me. I chose this Star Magnolia because it lights up whatever darkness surrounds it in the same way the stars light the heavens and Jesus lights the darkness around us.

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. ~Colossians 3:15 ✝

**Over the past 10 years, a plethora of research has shown that flowers increase the levels of positive energy and moods, reduce the likelihood of stress-related depression, and help people feel secure, relaxed, optimistic, and happy.

253. Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of delight. ~John Ruskin

January 19, 2014 by nataliescarberry

I’m a native of Europe and Siberia.
My name comes from the Greek word meaning “Dolphin.”
My dried flowers were used to dress wounds at the Battle of Waterloo.
European settlers made ink from my dried flowers.
I was used by West Coast Native Americans to make blue dye.
I’ve been said to represent the tears of the Virgin Mary.
Who am I? My name is Delphinium.
I can be blue and I’m beautiful.

Blue is a popular color in the garden perhaps because it is relatively rare one in the plant world. In fact, blue is said to be the most rare of colors amongst flowers. Thus I am blessed to live in a place whose state flower is blue and whose landscape in places becomes covered in seas of bluebonnets for several weeks every spring. Also, though Delphinium is not a staple in our landscape, they appear in pots in the nurseries this time of year before much, if anything, is blooming outside. So I can, like I did last week, buy some to brighten the drab days of winter. Both of the ones I got this year were marked as blue, but now that the second one is opening, I see that it’s going to be purple. But hey, who am I to complain since purple is another of my favorite colors, and it too is often hard to come by in the garden. Regardless of the color, now that I know that at one time delphiniums represented Mary’s tears, I’ll have yet another way of remembering what my salvation cost Mary and her precious son, the Christ.

May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. ~Psalm 126:5 ✝

250. Stay, little cheerful Robin! stay, and at my easement sing… ~William Wordsworth

January 16, 2014 by nataliescarberry

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

In the first photo, a Pinterest posting, is a European robin who according to my English garden bloggers is already singing in their gardens. The one in the second photo is our American robin who has yet to come, but when he does, we’ll know that spring can’t be too far away. For he, the stuff of a Messianic legend and spring’s cheery harbinger, will, as the poem says, sing loudly of its coming and our need to get up and out in the garden. Given my willingness to heed a garden’s summons at any point in time, the robin’s task won’t be too hard to accomplish. Would that I were as willing to listen to Christ’s calling. The last photograph I also found on Pinterest. Although I’ve heard and seen robins feeding their young in my yard, I’ve not yet been able to get a good photograph of the event.

For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I(God) know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine. ~Psalm 50:10-11 ✝

**See post 46 to read the legend of the robin.

228. Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves. ~Eric Sevareid, CBS new journalist

December 25, 2013 by nataliescarberry

Every happening, great and small,
is a parable whereby God speaks to us,
and the art of life is to get the message.
~Malcolm Muggeridge,
English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Purporting that life is “a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing” or that it’s merely the result of events that can be explained through science or reason falls short of compelling realities to the contrary. If mortals were simply intellectual beings, they’d not emote, express feelings, or commit loving acts that are seemingly inspired in some inscrutable place within their physical being. These things, like all happenings in Creation, are symbolic narratives designed to teach or illustrate truths about the Ancient of Days who not only created us but also wired humans with the capacity to feel, to express emotions, and to extend kindnesses to one another. So the sacred isn’t merely above us but forever within the entire body of Creation, and discovering the sacrosanct in it can’t help but stir in the descendants of Adam a sense of connection and belonging to a higher Power. The resources and bounty of planet earth alone give us plenteous reasons to sense the presence of a Holy Benefactor and feel His gracious, creative, and loving hands at work in our lives. But for me what sparks an even stronger desire within my human heart to seek the Creator is that God expanded the narrative and clearly revealed Himself when He sent His Son to be our Savior; Jesus is our memory, and in coming to offer us salvation, He reminds us of who we are and to whom we belong.

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 ✝

227. This, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing; haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary. ~William C. Dix

December 24, 2013 by nataliescarberry

May your home be a sanctuary
wherein you feel the continual presence of Yeshua, the Christ.
May you feel His mantle of love perpetually
surrounding you and all those you love.
May there be forgiveness and healing wherever there is brokenness.
May your life be long and yield a multitude of days
filled with laughter, love, and well-being.
May your world be blessed with plentitude and joy.
May there always be love in your heart; in your soul, may there be peace;
and in your mind may tranquility reign.
May each season of the coming years bring you
the best they have to proffer.
May you never be lacking enough and never want for more.
On rainy or troubling days may there be rainbows,
physical or spiritual, to gladden your eyes and heart and spirit.
As you listen for the sacred incantations of heaven’s orbs
may your hear the “echoes of the spheres”
speak of the Holy One and His goodness and mercy.
O come let us adore Him! He has come! The Messiah has come!

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~Romans 8:38-39 ✝

225. Stripes that are red like the blood shed for me. ~Author Unknown

December 23, 2013 by nataliescarberry

There’s a song in the air!
There’s a star in the sky!
~Joseph G. Holland

The strongest connection one might make between the origins of the candy cane and any intentional Christian association is to guess that possibly some unknown person, at some indefinite time, took a long-existing form of sweet (i.e., straight white sticks of sugar candy) that was already associated with Christmas and produced bent versions of it to represent a shepherd’s crook and/or make it easier to hang on Christmas trees, but even that general association is nothing more than mere supposition with no supporting evidence behind it. This is charming folklore, but one should not lose sight of the fact that such stories of the candy cane’s origins are, like Santa Claus, myths and not “true stories.”

There is one verifiable (albeit indirect) religious connection associated with the modern candy cane, however.

In 1919 Bob McCormack began making candy canes for local use and sales in Albany, Georgia, and by the middle of the century his company (originally the Famous Candy Company, then the Mills-McCormack Candy Company, and later Bob’s Candies) had become one of the world’s leading candy cane producers. But candy cane manufacturing initially required a fair bit of labor that limited production quantities (the canes had to be bent manually as they came off the assembly line in order to create their ‘J’ shape,) and it was McCormack’s brother-in-law, a Catholic priest named Gregory Harding Keller, who came up with the solution: Father Keller invented the Keller Machine that automated the process of shaping straight candy sticks into candy canes. ~Barbara Mikkelson

The woman said to him, “I know Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” ~John 4:25 ✝

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

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