Tag Archives: Hearts

732. Poor dear, silly Spring, preparing her annual surprises! ~Wallace Stevens

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Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let’s not be afraid to receive each day’s surprise; whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy, it will open a new place in our hearts… ~Henri Nouwen

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Some time back in March, I was standing in line at Lowe’s to check out when I looked over and saw a small packet of Peruvian Daffodil bulbs. Since I’d seen photos of these flowers before, I knew they were amazingly beautiful and was tempted to give them a try. However, never having had much luck with yellow daffodils, I wasn’t sure they would do any better with these especially as late as I was going to get them in the ground. But then I thought, as I often do these days, what the heck and bought them anyway. When I got home I had some Dahlias I was going try in pots and so I threw the Peruvian Daffodils in a pot too and set all 5 pots in places around the yard. After a couple of weeks, foliage began to appear. However, by that time it seems, I’d forgotten what was in that fifth pot. And then last week long stalks holding the blooms shot up from the strappy foliage, which I’d already been intrigued about making me even more curious about what in the world was growing in that pot. Curiouser and curiouser I grew, until…the lengthy “brain burp” ended, a vague memory of the incident at Lowe’s surfaced, and a bloom finally opened up. Oh, how I love surprises!!! And none better than exquisitely gorgeous ones in the garden! But now the surprise is raising conundrums.  For example, I’m wondering if they’ll make it in the pot through the long hot summer and on into autumn and winter? Or should I put them in the ground when they’re finished blooming? And if I do that, will they make it in the ground during summer, autumn, and winter? Or should I take the bulbs out of the pot when they’ve finished blooming, let them dry, and store them until next year when I can repot them? My oh my oh my, perhaps it’s time to look for the yellow brick road so I can go ask the Wizard of Oz or follow the white rabbit down the hole, like Alice did, and see if he has any answers or check to see if Einstein had any ideas about such things or should I just ask the Holy One whose hands made all there is? That’s it! That’s always a good idea, just like Paris is! Oh yes, my friends, our trip to Paris is getting closer and closer!

PS.  The little bug on one of the yellow anthers seems to like the surprise too!

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

715. God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars. ~Elbert Hubbard

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Experience is not
what happens to a man.
It is what a man does
with what happens to him.
~Aldous Leonard Huxley

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As I become more and more thankful for the constancy of God’s Presence through moments not only “where He maketh me lie down green pastures” or when “He leadeth me beside still waters and refreshes my soul” or during the times He walks with me “through the valley of the shadow of death,” the Lord lays more and more blessings on my table. So it is and has been that the cup of my soul is filled to overflowing and the contents therein have been steeped in a mellow and ripe richness. The fact that God is good and all that He created is good has grown increasingly more apparent even in moments of darkest despair. Such trials have stretched me upward to His saving light where I am able to see the “scarred” Christ who calls me, flawed and scarred, to be more than I dared dream was possible. Much like the embryonic infant who has to push its way agonizingly through the narrow straights of a mother’s womb to be born, gratitude tunnels a way bit by bit through dark and adverse portals where His fruits of the spirit are forged by fire into being. As well, as in the eye of a storm peace can exist in the midst of the turbulence and greater patience can be acquired by relinquishing control to a God who has always dwelt not only within and without Creation but also within and without each of His children.

Holy Spirit, You are welcome here
Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere
Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for
To be overcome by Your presence, Lord

I’ve tasted and seen, of the sweetest of loves
Where my heart becomes free, and my shame is undone
By Your presence, Lord

Let us become more aware of Your presence
Let us experience the glory of Your goodness…
~Excerpted lyrics by Bryan Torwalt
**To hear a recording of this song click on this link:
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS5S8Unvm48

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. ~Romans 5:1-4   ✝

698. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower. ~Samuel Smiles

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Finger-like ancient
flowers dating back to the
reign of Edward III

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Freckled are your tube-
like prettily colored bells
that look like a glove

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And are a lurking
place of the wee folk who clap
the fairy thunder

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Stately foxglove with
the lambs-tongue-leaves you thrill
the eye and heal hearts

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But beware to all
who know not you can kill a
man as well as heal

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Favorite of mine
are you in the garden but
grow you not in heat

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So it is that I
must find you early in the
year to grow in pots

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Where a favorite
of the buzzing bees and
my camera are you

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Because you see
I love your freckly poetry
of apostrophes

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My blogging friend, Bette Stevens, posted this week that April is national poetry month, and so I set out to write a series of haikus about a favorite flower of mine. I’m certainly no poet but I had fun trying to tell some of the lore about this flower in haiku fashion. Along with the verses are photos I’ve taken and others I found on Pinterest.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever. ~Isaiah 40:8   ✝

680. It is only when you start a garden – probably after age fifty – that you realize something important happens every day. ~Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

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Natural object themselves
even when they make no claim to beauty,
excite the feelings, and occupy the imagination.
Nature pleases, attracts, delights,
merely because it’s nature.
We recognize in it an Infinite Power.
~Karl Wilhelm Humboldt

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Give us hearts to understand;
never to take from creation’s beauty more than we give;
never to destroy wantonly for the furtherance of greed;
never to deny to give our hands for the building of earth’s beauty;
never to take from her what we cannot use.
Give us hearts to understand
That to destroy earth’s music is to create confusion;
that to wreck her appearance is to blind us to beauty;
That to callously pollute her fragrance
is to make a house of stench…
~Excerpted lines from a Native American Prayer

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. ~Romans 1:20   ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage by Natalie

670. Prayer is exhaling the spirit of man and inhaling the spirit of God. ~Edwin Keith (Update on my surgery)

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When we pray,
our hearts glow
a glorious joy
that lights our souls
and all the world around us.
~Terri Guillemets

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First and foremost, I want to thank those of you who have been praying for me during this time. I so appreciate that and your prayers definitely helped me stay strong and worry very little. My knee replacement surgery was two weeks ago today, and it went very well. I returned home three days later on the following Sunday. I was walking on a walker when I left the hospital and able to get up and down steps. The two weeks of in house rehab started immediately and has also gone well. They told me when I left the hospital I was well ahead of where most folks are after three days, and the PT’s have been repeating the same kudos as they worked with me here. So I’m very pleased with how things are going. This last Sunday, the PT’s took me off the walker and put me on a cane. Then today I went back to the doctor so he could take the staples out and the incision looks good, but I gotta tell you guys that taking those staples out smarted quite a bit! There was some oozing from one of the sights where they pulled out a staple but the fluid was not yet infected. However, just to be on the safe side, they’ve started me on an antibiotic for the next ten days. So now I’m facing 4 weeks (three times a week) of out patient rehab at a local facility. And yes, there is quite a bit of pain involved in the rehab so I still need prayers please, both for the rehab and that the antibiotic stops any chance of infection. I’ve been trying my best to keep up with your blog posts, but some days it’s harder than others to do so. For example, tonight I am very tired and hurting as well so I will not be able to make it through the list this evening. Please bear with me as I do miss reading your entries. It looks as though spring is definitely getting underway here and I sure would like to be out and about, but I shall have to be patient a little longer. Unfortunately patience has never been my strong suit. Oh, well, the Lord is always the unrelenting teacher of lessons He wants us to learn. I pray all is well with all of you and thank you again for all the support. Much love and huge hugs, Natalie

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ~1 John 4:11  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

655. Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken. ~Albert Camus

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There is no love of life
without despair of life.
~Albert Camus

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In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me,
an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me,
an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me,
an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was,
within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy.
For it says that no matter how hard
the world pushes against me, within me,
there’s something stronger –
something better, pushing right back.
~Albert Camus

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I would rather live my life
as if there is a God and die to
find out there isn’t,
than live as if there isn’t a God and
to die to find out that there is.
~Albert Camus

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. ~1 Corinthians 10:13   ✝

**Images via Pinterest

631. We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder

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Blessings are the things we take for granted.
Most know the Earth is utterly enchanted
Yet walk through life and love mechanically.
Love brings the sweet relief of absolution,
Enveloping our hesitance in need.
No touch inspires so swift a revolution,
Transforming all the hieroglyphs we read.
In your love is the charity of spring,
Nor self-obsessed nor blinded by some creed,
Embracing the grey dawns that blessings bring.
~Excerpted lines by Cornelius Lyons

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Dawn washes away night’s darkness and brings light to the day. Be grateful for the light, your eyes, and the purposes they serve. Ears allow humankind to hear the song of the birds and words of love. Be grateful for them and the purposes they serve. Feet take mortals places where they want and need to go. Be grateful for them and the purposes they serve. Arms and hands enable people to work, care for themselves, and embrace others. Be grateful for them and the purposes they serve. The in and out movement of breath sustains the gift of life all have been granted. Thus, in all things honor the gifts, the Giver, and the blessings that they are and that they bring.

…because of your father’s God, who helps you, because of the Almighty, who blesses you with blessings of the skies above, blessings of the deep springs below, blessings of the breast and womb. Your father’s blessings are greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains, than the bounty of the age-old hills… ~Genesis 49:25-26   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

629. One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides.
~W. E. Johns 

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The greatest achievement was at first
and for a time a dream.
The oak sleeps in the acorn,
the bird waits in the egg,
and in the highest vision of the soul
a waking angel stirs.
Dreams are the seedlings of realities.
~James Allen

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Part of the genius of God’s grand design is that we awaken every day to a fresh flowing of His energy and vitality that has been stored in the seeds of our being, seeds that possess the same strength as that of the rising sun, earth’s swelling seas, and its fertile plains. An excellent time to look for the shining of His everlasting light in the “sanctuary of the soul” is in the first waking moments of each new day. That inward realm is where doors open to the germination of new life because inside each one of us the Lord has planted His “seeds of greatness.” There’s never a moment in life when either in and of ourselves or in the people around us that there are not yet unopened gifts of promise. Simply put, “heaven’s creativity on earth” is born in our bodies, and therein the Master’s “sacred hopes” are hidden.

From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind; from His dwelling place He watches all who live on earth-He who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do. ~Psalm 33:13-15   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

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

508. All our lives we are engaged in preserving our experiences and keeping them fresh by artificially sprinkling the water of memory over them. ~Vimala Thakar

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Memory is a child walking the seashore.
You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up
and store away among its treasured things.
~Pierce Harris

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Events-a heartbreak here, a miracle there-come and go weaving the experiences of our seasons solidly into the fabric of our lives and who we are. Layer upon layer of growing moves us through doors that forever alter our reality and render us somewhat different than we were prior to each particular journey. And as we leave behind places and people, time attempts to swallow them up. But we carry the treasured “pebbles” we pick up with us into every new arena because they’ve etched indelible marks in us which continue to reverberate deep within our hearts. And these memories of past events that we’ve “stored away” never cease to ebb and flow even from behind foggy mists of forgetfulness. With me they are often remembered in moonlight reveries when seeking the feel of God’s presence or when lingering in places of beauty with no other agenda but to relish the glory of all that He made.

In the secret,
in the quiet place,
in the stillness
You(God) are there.
~Excerpt from the lyrics of a song
by Chris Tomlin

I will perpetuate your memory through all generations; therefore the nations will praise you for ever and ever. ~Psalm 45:17   ✝

** Image via Pinterest