Tag Archives: Glad

613. But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? ~William Shakespeare

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Here comes the sun
and I say, it’s all right…
Little darlin’, it seems like years
since it’s been clear….
~Excerpted lyrics by John Lennon
George Harrison, and Paul McCartney

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Degree by degree by degree a glow appears on the eastern horizon. Brighter and lighter it grows as inch by inch by inch the sun lifts night’s shades higher and higher revealing a cloudless sky was washed clean of the cold, greys of past days. Up and up and up rises the blaze of the sun, ancient bearer of light and warmth and cheer. In the rising incandescence the busy birds are chirpier, the scampering squirrels are friskier, and the prowling feral cats are bushy-tailed. The sun, the sun, the marvelous sun–now it’s kissing the tips and tops of things before oozing and spreading like melting butter on a warm piece of toast over everything it touches. The morning air, charged with electricity in anticipation of its fullness, is kindling a warmer rhythm for this wintry day, and when the first splinters of the sun’s golden rays finally run across the garden and lawn, the dance of life will pulse strong again in hearts and feet alike. And then, when there is light, glorious, glorious light, we shall rise and greet thee, O Lord, with glad and grateful hearts.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ~Genesis 1:3-4   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

493. It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility. ~Rachel Carson

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If facts are seeds that later produce 
knowledge and wisdom,
then the emotions and 
the impressions of the senses
are the fertile soil 
in which the seeds must grow.
~Rachel Carson

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God made the forests, the tiny stars, and the wild winds–
and I think that He has made them partly
as a balance for that kind of civilization that
would choke the spirit of joy out of our hearts.
He made the great open places for people who want to be…
away from the crowds that kill all reverence.
And I think He is glad at times to have us forget
our cares and responsibilities so that we may be nearer Him–
as Jesus was when he crept away into the wilderness to pray.
~Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. ~Mark 1:35   ✝

** Image via Pinterest

474. For summer there, bear in mind, is a loitering gossip, that only begins to talk of leaving when September rises to go. ~George Washington Cable

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September days have the warmth of summer
in their briefer hours, but in their lengthening evenings
a prophetic breath of autumn.
The cricket chirps in the noontide,
making the most of what remains of his brief life.
The bumblebee is busy among the clover blossoms
of the aftermath, and their shrill and dreamy hum
hold 
the outdoor world above the voices
of the song birds, now silent or departed.
~Rowland E. Robinson

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Whew! Am I glad August is over!!! It’s still extremely hot, but at least September, bearer of the autumnal equinox, holds the possibility that later in the month we’ll be blessed with our first cool, crisp morn. Although autumn’s voice nor breath are yet discernible, its harbingers have alerted my eyes and therefore my camera. So with forbearance I shall press on through the remainder of the “heat beast’s” reign, knowing and delighting in the fact that its days are numbering fewer and fewer. Perhaps one day I shall be able to embrace the idea that “the discipline of blessings is to taste each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet and the salty, (even the insanely hot) and be glad for what does not hurt.” Indeed, God has lots of work left to do in me.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens… ~Ecclesiastes 3:1   ✝

438. God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today.  Have you used one to say “thank you?”  ~William A. Ward

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Whatever be the depth of woe
Along the path that I must go,
I’ll sing my song—
My song of joy for all the love
That’s lavished on us from above,
And count no loss of treasure-trove
When things go wrong.
I’ll sing the sunlight, and the bright
Soft smiling stars that gem the night;
For gifts of good
That God hath spread along my way,
The lilt of birds in tuneful play,
The harvests full and flowers gay,
The whole day long
I’ll sing my song
Of gratitude!
~John Kendrick Bangs

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The passage of Scripture below is not a suggestion. It’s a mandate. It’s not meant for only the good times. It’s meant for this day and every day no matter what comes our way. It doesn’t say to hang our heads in defeat or wring our hands in worry or fear when the world is harsh and times are tough. It says to rejoice and be glad in the day. Why? Because life is a gift and it’s holy, every breath is a gift and it’s holy, we are meant to be a gift to the world and we are holy. Being holy means not being defined by what comes against us, but to come into that which is holy and good within us. Joy can be found in every day, not because life is always good but because God is. Lest any who read this think me naive or the survivor of a “charmed” life to believe these things, let me allow that I’ve endured my fair share of “dark nights of the soul,” I’ve been in the black abyss and climbed out, I’ve felt death’s sting in the loss of some I’ve loved, I’ve known heartbreak and tragedy, I’ve known defeat and failure, I’ve experienced chilling betrayal, and I’ve lived with chronic pain for nearly 50 years. But, hear this, the Giver of life has never left me to walk those bitter paths alone, even during the times when I turned my back on Him. So when He asks me to make a joyful noise unto Him, I can and shall do naught but gratefully oblige.

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. ~Psalm 118:24   ✝

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! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

425. When you celebrate, you are taking time to recognize, to open your eyes and behold in your life the quiet miracles and gifts that seek no attention; yet each day they nourish, shelter, and animate your life. ~John O’Donohue

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Don’t ask yourself what the world needs;
ask yourself what makes you come alive.
And then go and do that.
Because what the world needs is
people who have come alive.
~Attributed to Howard Thurman,
American author, philosopher, theologian,
educator, and civil rights leader

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The Lord demonstrates great passion in all that He does and in all that He creates, and so made in His image as we are, we are designed to be passionate. Our passions make us come alive, and it is in that awakening that we come into full bloom like the passion flower above. Passion unlocks our potential and helps us discover our divine purpose in this life; it creates “moments that blossom,” and that’s what makes the human heart want to celebrate. We are implored in Scripture to celebrate; celebration has been described as a delightful and intense form of human presence. It draws us together, and I believe our relationships with each other ultimately lead to a desire to be in relationship with the Lord.

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. ~Psalm 118:24    ✝

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! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

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

382. It has been said that art is a tryst, for in the joy of it maker and beholder meet. ~Kojiro Tomita.

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I have found, through years of practice, that people garden in order
to make something grow; to interact with nature;
to share, to find sanctuary, to heal, to honor the earth, to leave a mark.
Through gardening, we feel whole as we make
our personal work of art upon our land.
~Julie Moir Messervy

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Blessings For Artists At The Start Of The Day by John O’Donohue

May morning be astir with the harvest of night;
Your mind quickening to the eros of a new question,
Your eyes seduced by some unintended glimpse
That cut right through the surface to a source.

May this be a morning of innocent beginning,
When the gift within you slips clear of the sticky web of the personal
With its hurt and its hauntings, and fixed fortress corners, a morning
When you become a pure vessel for what wants to ascend from silence.

May your imagination know the grace of perfect danger,
To reach beyond imitation, and the wheel of repetition,
Deep into the call of all the unfinished and unsolved.
Until the veil of the unknown yields and something original
Begins to stir toward your senses and grow stronger in your heart
In order to come to birth in a clean line of form, that claims from time
A rhythm not yet heard, that calls space to a different shape.

May it be its own force field and dwell uniquely
Between the heart and the light to surprise the hungry eye…

Surely you have granted him unending blessings and made him glad with the joy of Your presence. ~Psalm 21:6   ✝

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!

369. I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them and the study of nature. ~Abraham Cowley

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Riotous Garden

I love my old riotous garden,
Its unconcern gladdens the heart;
No method whate’er in its beauty,
For nature supreme reigns in art.

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Each path leads to some spot enchanting,
Full fragrant with prodigal bloom,
Where robins, gay, warble approval,
In carols dispersing all gloom.

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To entertain angels and fairies
Seems just the correct thing to do,
They’re always so loving and gentle,
With heart blessed by charity true.

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Here beautiful thoughts without pattern,
Where God sheds His blessings divine,
Form poems from nebulous nothings
In this riotous garden of mine.
~Julie Caroline O’Hara

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Surely you have granted him unending blessings and made him glad with the joy of Your presence. ~Psalm 21:6  ✝

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!

328. Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth

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We are mosaics–
pieces of light,
love,
history,
stars–
glued together
with
magic
and music
and words.
~Anita Krizzan

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Wordsmiths we are, we who pen our thoughts and feelings upon the page, scribes who search the depths of our hearts to share the terrors in our “dark nights of the soul” and the heights of ecstasy in our glad times and victories for if we touch such things in others, we connect in our vulnerable sameness, grief is halved and joys doubled. The artist who paints upon a canvas or sketches on paper does the same with the images he/she creates as does the musician who marks notes upon a staff. The creative urge is deeply rooted in the human soul, and our yearning to bring what’s inside to the surface is a way of getting to know God, our Creator, for we are, after all, made in His image.

This is what God the Lord says–the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it… Isaiah 42:5  ✝

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!

327. I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods. ~Wendell Berry

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Not undelightful, friend, our rustic ease
To grateful hearts; for by especial hap,
Deep nested in the hill’s enormous lap,
With its own ring of walls and grove of trees,
Sits, in deep shelter, our small cottage – nor
Far-off is seen, rose carpeted and hung
With clematis, the quarry whence she sprung,
O mater pulchra filia pulchrior,
(What a beautiful mother and beautiful daughter,)
Whither in early spring, unharnessed folk,
We join the pairing swallows, glad to stay
Where, loosened in the hills, remote, unseen,
From its tall trees, it breathes a slender smoke
To heaven, and in the noon of sultry day
Stands, coolly buried, to the neck in green.
~Robert Louis Stevenson

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“I (Jesus) am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be more fruitful.” ~John 15:1-2 ✝

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!

**Photos are of blossoms on my new Clematis vine…