I follow three rules:
Do the right thing,
do the best you can, and
always show people you care.
~Lou Holtz
**Watercolor image found on Pinterest; text box added by Natalie
The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. ~Psalm 103:19 ✝
When I see that first, minuscule, curled pale green wisp of a sprout
poking up between a couple of grains of vermiculite, I hear God speaking.
~June Santon
Babies, little green babies, miracles of soil and seed are bursting forth from earth’s womb even as winter approaches. And as always I find the potential for life that exists in something as small and seemingly lifeless as a seed mind boggling. Equally astounding is the fact that stored within each tiny seed are enough nutrients to spark life in the seedling that will ultimately grow from the embryo, an embryo which has two points of growth. From one end of a particle sometimes as small as a speck of dust emerges a stem and from the other emerge roots. As if all this is not enough to inspire complete and utter amazement, the process of germination certainly does. Germination is a reactivation of metabolic pathways that depends on the right temperatures, the right amount of oxygen and water, and sometimes the right amount of darkness and light. But wait all this is not really the best part! The most impressive thing is that the entire process of seed to plant to seed, from beginning to end, can and frequently does occur without a human hand ever entering the process.
Jesus made clear that the Kingdom of God is organic and not organizational. It grows like a seed and it works like leaven: secretly, invisibly, surprisingly, and irresistibly. ~Os Guinness
Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of earth. You have made heaven and earth. ~Isaiah 37:16 ✝
** Images via Pinterest
Seasons knocking on the door
Each one with its unique lore
Springtime fingerpaints the earth
Spreading its immeasurable mirth
Summer’s heat bursts upon the scene
And each day the sun reigns as queen
Autumn casts a cloak of burnished hues
With copper tinged foliage as its muse
Winter’s kingdom wears robes of pristine white
While snowflakes whispered dance is quite the sight
Seasons stand side by side, natural neighbors
Observing each other’s seasonal labors.
~Edited poem by Kristen A.
He (G0d) made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down. ~Psalm 104:19 ✝
Veiled in this fragile filigree of wax is the essence of sunshine,
golden and limpid, tasting of grassy meadows, mountain wildflowers,
lavishly blooming orange trees, or scrubby desert weeds…
The nectar collected by the bee is
the spirit and sap of the plant, its sweetest juice.
Honey is the flower transmuted,
its scent and beauty transformed into aroma and taste.
~Stephanie Rosenbaum
O little bee a buzzing at your task,
is it lavender that speaks your name,
or do the coneflowers and rudbeckia,
tempt your hunger even more.
What about the roses and the jasmine
or French Hollyhock and foxglove?
Or might it be those flashy daylilies and
Spirea that recently bloomed in pink?
Grand indeed are the garden’s gifts,
And you appear to love them one and all
for everywhere that I have been
I’ve found you working there as well.
Whilst I busy myself with garden chores
I do keep a watchful eye on you
for I’d love to find your hive one day
and taste your nectar honey’s sweet.
~Natalie Scarberry
Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. ~Proverbs 24:13 ✝
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.
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!
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
The Seed-Shop
Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,
Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,
Forlorn as ashes, shriveled, scentless, dry-
Meadows and gardens running through my hand.
In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams;
A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust
That will drink deeply of a century’s streams;
These lilies shall make summer on my dust.
Here in their safe and simple house of death,
Sealed in their shells, a million roses leap;
Here I can blow a garden with my breath,
And in my hand a forest lies asleep.
~Muriel Stuart, English poet
He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” ~Matthew 13:31-32 ✝
Let there never be forgot,
that once there was a spot,
for one brief, shining moment
that was known as Camelot.
~Lerner and Lowe, 1960
The line above from the Broadway musical makes a statement that in fact there was a Camelot, and many people, including President John F. Kennedy, seemed to believe that it was a real time and place in history. Real or not so real, it was the legendary, marvelously magical time and place of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. For me it’s magical moments in time when things ever so extraordinary and good are happening in the awakening landscape. Then sadly when they get nipped in the bud by a bitter, cold snap, it’s a betrayal of sorts not unlike what brought an end to the glory of Camelot. Such is what happened night before last to the pretty babies in the photographs. But I shall not curse late February for telling the traitorous lies that led to their demise; instead I rejoice that they came at all. Even if only for a few days their “brief, shining moment” in the garden’s “kingdom of Camelot” was stunningly beautiful.
By the breath of God ice is given, and the broad waters are frozen fast. ~Job 37:10 ✝
Sacred Touches 