803. The prairie sky – is high and wide deep in the heart of Texas.

July 9, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The sage in bloom – is like perfume deep in the heart of Texas.

The stars at night – are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas.

And after 16 days in Europe – we’re finally back home, safe and sound, deep in the heart of Texas. However we’re exhausted, have mountains of dirty clothes to unpack and wash, and there are over 7,000 emails in my inbox. Sadly, I don’t think I could never catch up with all that, so I’m just going to start from scratch today reading your new posts and comments. I pray that all of you are well. I’ve missed you and your posts and am looking forward to re-engaging with “y’all,” as they say down here in Texas. Love, Natalie

We praise you and thank you Lord for all your tender mercies and protection these past sixteen days! “I will praise God’s name in song and glorify Him with thanksgiving.” ~Psalm 69:30 ✝

*All images via Pinterest.

778. It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters. ~Evander Holyfield

June 21, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The human heart feels things
the eyes cannot see
and knows what the mind
cannot understand.
~Robert Valett

Hearts, hearts, hearts
What great miracles they are–
Intentions that beat, unexplained parts
Of deepest desires, holding dreams and scars.

Hearts they say, “the size of your palms”
And racing away, in unfamiliar tracks,
Searching and chasing they travel
Ticking away even when the mind is at rest.
~Edited and adapted excerpt from a poem
by an Unknown Author

Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ~Deuteronomy 6:5 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

776. Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you. ~Rumi

June 19, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Poetry isn’t a profession,
it’s a way of life.
It’s an empty basket;
you put your life into it
and make something out of that.
~Mary Oliver

A tisket, a tasket
A green and rosy basket.
The wind blew a thistle’s seed.
On the way to elsewhere.
It blew it,
it blew it,
The seed that made my basket.
~Natalie Scarberry

(Basket-flower, also called American star thistle, is annual garden and wildflower native to southwestern North America. Resembling a spineless thistle, it has stout branching stems, and when the rose-coloured compact heads of disk flowers appear they are surrounded by fringed bracts, similar in appearance to a woven basket. Their seeds are borne in achene fruits and are wind-dispersed. These thistles are commonly planted in gardens to attract birds and butterflies.) I’d been watching this plant for months as I’d not seen one in my yard before, and so I wasn’t sure at first what it was. Then when it started putting on its baskets I knew it was an American thistle. And since the wind had blown it in, it was almost as if the blessing of blossoms had dropped from above. If you remember the nursery rhyme that started out like the first line of my silly little poem, it should sound more or less the same as the original if you sing along with the words. And I probably should ask Mary Oliver to forgive me for quoting her along with my feeble attempt at such.)

Thus the Lord God showed me, and behold there was a basket of summer fruit (or in my case, a basket thistle). ~Amos 8:1 ✝

775. I cry very easily. It can be a movie, a phone conversation, a sunset – tears are words waiting to be written. ~Paulo Coelho

June 18, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Embrace sorrowful thoughts
for they sweep the house of your heart clean,
scatter the withered leaves,
and pull out the twisted roots,
preparing the ground for  the
new shoots of joy.
~Rumi

Listen to your heart.
It knows all things,
because it comes from
the Soul of the World,
and it will one day return there.
~Paulo Coelho

Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end. ~Isaiah 60:20 ✝

**Image by French artist, Anne Marie Zilberman, found on Pinterest

765. Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. ~Paul Boese

June 8, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Chocolate says “I’m sorry”
so much better than words.
~Rachel Vincent

I’ve have been absent this weekend and have not been able to read your posts or answer comments for days, and I’m so sorry. My granddaughter graduated from high school yesterday, and it was a very busy weekend preparing food for a party on Saturday and then the ceremony itself was yesterday. I’m also the one usually picked to take all the photos during such events so there were the 400+ photos to download, edit, and email to the interested parties. But I believe that by tomorrow, life should be back to my normal routines at least for the next two weeks. I wish I could give you some of the candy in this Paris shop because their chocolate is so much better than ours. Please accept my apology as I do care about each and everyone one of you, and I’ve hated not being able to be involved and in touch. Love, Natalie

May you be blessed by the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. ~Psalm 115:15 ✝

763. In the end, there is no absence of irony… ~Winona LaDuke

June 7, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Life is too ironic to understand.
It takes sadness to know
What happiness is,
Noise to appreciate silence,
And absence
To value presence!
~Author Unknown

Not too long after I graduated and began working in a secretarial position, the grant that funded James’ job at the blood bank expired and so he had to be let go. After a few months he got another job, this time with EPA working in air pollution control here in our area, and thus we continued moving forward in paying off the debts incurred from his illness in our first year of marriage. On a side note, as a requirement for his job, James had to attend conferences on air quality and pollution controls. When one came up which required that he fly to North Carolina, I learned for the very first time that James was very much afraid of flying, and though I hadn’t thought of it for several years, it occurred me then that that probably meant the end of any chance of ever getting to Paris. But I told myself such is life and just let the dream fall by the wayside again. Soon after that I decided to stop wasting the education that my parents had worked hard to fund and went back to school one summer in order to get a third teaching field. In the fall of 1968 I finally got my first teaching job, and then 2001 I retired after having taught English and/or Spanish for 31 years. And go figure! I never did get the opportunity to teach French. And so whoooosh! The dream’s tiny, remaining flame is all but snuffed out one more time. However, all had not been lost. Life had gone on in spite of all the setbacks and dashed hopes. Over the course of our now nearly 53 years of marriage, I had given birth to our one and only child who was and is the delight and love of our lives. But wait! Are you ready for this one? She met her future husband while they were both working on their Ph.D in graduate school, and they married shortly after their graduations. So? One might ask. What’s the problem with that? Well… Where do suppose he took her on their honeymoon??? Why, where else but Paris of course and for a whole, entire week! To be continued…

You, Lord, are my lamp; the Lord turns my darkness into light. ~2 Samuel 22:29 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

762. Life is like a canvas. It begins blank every day, and when at day’s end it’s like another brush stroke has been painted across it. ~Edited Unknown

June 7, 2015 by nataliescarberry

You don’t just have a story –
you’re the story in the making,
and you never know what the
next chapter is going to be.
That’s what makes it exciting.
~Dan Millman

Life is like a book and
we’re the writers of our own stories,
the makers of our own destiny.
And each day is a new chapter,
a new challenge,
a new path,
a new journey.
~Unknown

Your word, Lord, is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. ~Psalm 119:105 ✝

755. “I’m glad I am alive, to see and feel the full deliciousness of this bright day…” ~William Allingham

June 3, 2015 by nataliescarberry

In June, as many as a dozen species
may burst their buds on a single day.
~Aldo Leopold

By 1890, San Antonio, Texas, was a thriving trade center with population of 38,000.

In 1891 a group of citizens decided to honor the heroes
of the Alamo and Battle of San Jacinto with a Battle of Flowers.

The first parade had horse-drawn carriages, bicycles decorated with fresh flowers
and floats carrying children dressed as flowers.

The Belknap Rifles represented the military.

The participants pelted each other with blossoms.

Today it’s the largest parade in Fiesta and is second in size nationally
only to the Tournament of Roses Parade.

It’s fiesta time again in yard too!

Whenever I look out the windows, especially this time of year,
I think of these hispanic fiestas which are always so very colorful.

So I hope you enjoy this frenzy of oranges, reds, pinks,
yellows, blues, whites, and purples.

I don’t often post two entries in one day, but it’s getting awfully hot here
and some of my pretty blossoms don’t last too long in the heat.

This is what the Lord says to me: “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” ~Isaiah 18:4 ✝

753. And then something invisible snapped inside her, and that which had come together commenced to fall apart. ~John Green

June 2, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Drop the last year of your life
into the silent limbo of the past.
Let it go, for it was imperfect,
and thank God that it can go.
~Brooks Atkinson

Have you ever had one of those stagnant years where the lackluster of life seems to have dulled and you are stuck in a kind of limbo? Well that’s the way life seemed during my Sophomore year in college. Not only had my father’s death at the end of the previous year dashed me against the hard rocks of an excruciating reality for the first time in my life, but my faith had been shaken, deeply shaken by events in and around his funeral. Not only had I to contend with his death and hypocrisy in the church but also the reality that some anger “business” between Dad and I was now never to be resolved and forgiven. That combined with some deplorable actions by the clergy and leaders in the church lead to what would become a decades-long derailment in my walk with the Lord. So indeed something had snapped inside me. I was barely 19 years old and I had commenced to fall apart which became clearly reflected in my first semester grades that year. By midterm I found myself on scholastic probation both for the University as well as for my sorority. Even my dreams of living in Paris had paled under the duress of my heartache and befuddlement. And for months and months nothing changed; lines had been blurred, dreams had faded, and hope had grown dim. I was stuck, stuck in limbo, stuck in unfamiliar waters of being, and all the while suffering, hurting alone since I’d been told by elders I should put my grieving aside and be strong for my mom and two younger sisters. But life has a way of moving on whether one feels its progression or not, and by the end of the second semester, my grades had come back up and a tiny ray of light began to break through the gloomy cloud cover that had been shrouding my world.

A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit. ~Proverbs 15:13 ✝

**Photo of La Tour Eiffel taken by Natalie Scarberry

751. What light through yonder window breaks? ~William Shakespeare

May 31, 2015 by nataliescarberry

A single sunbeam is enough
to drive away many shadows.
~St. Francis of Assisi

Birds sing after a storm;
why shouldn’t people
feel as free to delight
in whatever sunlight remains
to them.
~Rose Kennedy

The top picture above was taken a month ago of a river in our area. The photo beneath it is that same river now, a month later. But today the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and all’s right with the world. Praise the Lord! Thank you for the rain and for the end of this awful drought here; thank you now for the sun that’s blessing this Sabbath.

The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted. ~Isaiah 30:26 ✝

**Top photo via Pinterest; bottom two aerial photos via local news station

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

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