Tag Archives: Lord

749. It has been said, “time heals all wounds.” I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind protecting it’s sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone. ~Rose Kennedy

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The love of Christ reaches
to the very depths
of earthly misery and woe…
It also reaches to
the throne of the eternal…
~Excerpts from Ellen G. White

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Oh, misery, what’s gonna become of me?
It’s raining,  a-rainin’ in my heart again
‘Cause this awful pain keeps me alone and awake.
The heavy, tearful rain’s a-fallin’ even though
I hear Your voice, Lord, a-callin,’ “It’s all right.”
But this salty, rain of teary sadness mixed
With desperation keeps a-fallin on my pillow
While outside it’s another rainy night in Texas.
And it seems like both rains are never gonna stop.
Lightning bolts a-flashin’, thunder booms a rumblin’
And the distant moanin’ of a train seems to play
A sad, sad refrain on this hard and rainy night.
Oh Lord, it’s such a rainy night in Texas,
It’s like it’s a-rainin’ everywhere in my world.
And no matter how many times I wonder
The story still comes out the same…
Whichever way one looks at it or thinks on it
It’s life and one’s just got to play the game
.
So I tell my pain-filled blues they mustn’t show
But these tears tonight I cannot keep from flowin’
‘Cause it’s rainin’ in my sad, despairin’ heart.
~Edited and adapted lyrics from a song
by Tony Joe White, and another song
by Bouleaux Bryant, and Felice Bryant

Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief. ~Psalm 31:9   ✝

748. Red is passion-lit, orange is flowerageous, yellow is suntastic, pink is lipsensual, green is lifebursting, blue is skyful, purple is berrydancing, gray is cloudrainy. ~Terri Guillemets

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Beauty is the adjustment of all parts
proportionately so that one cannot add
or subtract or change without
impairing 
the harmony of the whole.
~Leon B. Alberti

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To conquer a piece of earth and make it as beautiful
as one can dream of it being: That is art, too.
A man cannot be separated from the earth.
I come out of the garden every day feeling,
oh, inspired in a way that one needs
in order to convert the daily-ness of the life
into something greater than that little life itself.
~Stanley Kunitz

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Nothing is more the child
of art than a garden.
~Sir Walter Scott

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But who can paint
like Nature?
Can imagination boast,
amid its gay creation,
hues like hers?
~James Thomson

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Nature is painting for us,
day after day,
pictures of infinite beauty.
~James Russell Lowell

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If you ask me what I came
to do in this world,
I, an artist, will answer you:
I am here to live out loud.
~Emile Zola

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My garden is the canvas
upon which nature paints,
and in it I daily toil.
With my camera in hand
at other times,
I let live 
Yahweh’s art
out loud!
~Natalie Scarberry

Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are al the work of your hand. ~Isaiah 64:8   ✝

**I took all these photos of flowers blooming in my yard.

747. Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling… ~What Whitman

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I’ll tell you how the sun rose,
-a ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.
The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
“That must have been the sun!”
~Emily Dickinson

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“The sun says his prayers,” said the fairy,
Or else he would wither and die.
“The sun says his prayers,” said the fairy,
“For strength to climb up through the sky.
He leans on invisible angels,
And Faith is his prop and his rod.
The sky is his crystal cathedral.
And dawn is his altar to God.”
~Vachel Lindsay

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Ya know coming all to soon upon us now are the days when I’ll be begging for clouds, any kind of clouds, even one big cloud to shade us at least for a little while from the sweltering heat of the summer sun here in Texas, but today after more than a month of gray, gloomy, cloudy, rainy days, I was thrilled to see the sun at daybreak. And although we have more chances for more the rest of the week, it has been deliciously sunny most of the day. Throughout the last decade we have been through a harsh and severe drought that left our water reservoirs in dangerously low or in some areas where the lakes or other water supplies had completely dried up. So I prayed and prayed for rain and promised never to complain about it ever be importune again. And I won’t break that promise to the Lord, but now that our rivers and lakes are approaching flood stage or already flowing over, I pray that the Lord spread the rains out over the summer months before there’s any more loss of life and/or property.

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   ✝

**Images via Pinterest; notice the photo of the deer who seems to be praising the Lord for the sun’s appearance.

746. I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. ~Vincent Van Gogh

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Night, the beloved.
Night, when words fade
and things come alive.
When the destructive analysis of day is done,
and all that is truly important
becomes whole and sound again.
When man reassembles his fragmentary self
and grows with the calm of a tree.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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Vespers

The golden sun has gone, the busy day is done.
Twilight has come and with it peace draws near
To dwell an hour within my garden walls, while in
The lambent sky the first pale stars appear.
The wheeling shadows that so slowly marked the hours
Have left no impress on the tender grass,
Nor does the air hold fast the patterns bold and free
That winging birds weave as the warm days pass.
The rued pool is stilled at last, and Lily buds
Prepare to open gently to the night
And to the questing moth whose fragile, gauzy wings
Quiver too rapidly for human sight.
In. this tranquillity, touch, hearing, sight are lulled.
I am as selfless as the scented airs
That wrap me round, while daylight’s drowsy flowers
Send out the fragrance of their vesper prayers.
~Marie Nettleton Carroll

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I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. ~Psalm 16:7   ✝

**Images of Hawk (Hummingbird) Moths via Pinterest

745. I hope your dreams take you to the corners of your smiles, to the highest of your hopes, to the windows of your opportunities, and to the most special places your heart has ever known. ~Author Unknown

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You cannot help but learn more
as you take the world into your hands.
Take it up reverently, for it is
an old piece of clay, with millions
of thumbprints on it.
~John Updike

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This is my lovely granddaughter. She was two years old when her father and our daughter, Nikki, got married. So I have been a part of her life almost from the get go and like to think that I’ve had a positive impact on her, if not by a blood link, then by a shared heart link. Like my daughter, Annie is beautiful and bright and has a compassionate, loving heart. She will graduate soon from high school, and then in the fall she will be headed off to college. Since her life will soon change in profound ways, I pray that she continues to follow the Lord and the holy nudgings of her own heart. Part of my desire for her is best stated in these quotes above and below and in what Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.” And I pray that she always knows that the “all” of who and what she is more than enough since she is made in the image of Almighty God. For a better insight into her sweet heart, check out some of her posts on her blog where she expresses her love and desire to serve the Lord at:   https://alwayslivingforhim.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/little-moments-big-blessings/

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To be nobody but yourself in a world
which is doing its best, night and day,
to make you everybody else
means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight;
and never stop fighting.
~e.e. cummings, 1955

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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ~Marianne Williamson

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. ~Proverbs 3:5-6   ✝

743. Zero (0) is not nothing.  It’s a circle, without beginning or end. Holy. Healed. ~Wallace Black Elk, Lakota

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A wheel was shown to me,
wonderful to behold.
Divinity . . . is like a wheel,
a circle, a whole,
that can neither be understood,
nor divided, nor begun nor ended . . .
no one has the power
 to divide
this circle, 
to surpass it, or to limit it.
~St. Hildegard of Bingen

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beginnings, middles, endings,
so 
go the circles of life
 here
and over and over again
the sacred circles repeat themselves
with more beginnings,
more middles,
more endings,
and yet little seems the same from
day to day, month to month, year to year,
in these patterns of inconstancy
within the undeniable constancy
that create our “wow” now moments
as well as the not so “wow” ones
so what’s to be made of all the same
and not so same circular sameness
or the ups and downs and all around times
in the beginnings, middles, and endings
only the Ancient of Days knows why
these everlasting 
holy rhythms
of the universe
 move in such a way
~Natalie Scarberry

It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end. ~Deuteronomy 11:12   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

737. Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom. ~Rumi

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Did I offer peace today?
Did I bring a smile to someone’s face?
Did I say words of healing?
Did I let go of anger and resentment?
Did I forgive? Did I love?
These are the real questions.
I must trust that the little bit
of love that I sow now
bears many fruits, here in this world
and in the life to come.
~Henri Nouwen

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Give birth and life to your faith and dreams.
Let die all doubt and fear.
Plant seeds of hope.
Uproot all intolerance.

Kill off pridefulness.
Speak words of healing.
Tear down walls of indifference.
Build up those who are downtrodden.

Weep with compassion for those less fortunate.
Laugh long and often.
Mourn in your own way but not without hope.
Dance with gusto and sometimes in the rain.

Scatter stones that wall in and isolate mercy.
Gather stones in order to build bridges instead.
Embrace all living creatures.
Refrain from embracing ignorance and extravagance.

Search for your true self.
Give up on what the world tells you should be.
Keep your focus on the still, small voice inside.
Throw away words spoken in anger, resentment, and envy.

Tear away from those bent on destruction.
Mend broken relationships with forgiveness.
Be silent and listen to your heart’s sacred and sound goodness.
Speak words of comfort and concern and love.

Love the Lord with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul.
Hate injustice and prejudice.
War not with others nor yourself.
Pray for wisdom and peace.

1     There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens: 

2      a time to be born and a time to die,
    
        a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3      a time to kill and a time to heal,
    
        a time to tear down and a time to build,

4      a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    
        a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5      a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    
        a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6      a time to search and a time to give up,
    
        a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7      a time to tear and a time to mend,
   
        a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8      a time to love and a time to hate,
  
        a time for war and a time for peace.

~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

736. I was in love with the whole world and all that lived in its rainy arms. ~Louise Erdrich

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My poetry was born
between the hill and the river.
It took its voice
 from the rain,
and like the timber,
it steeped itself in the forests.
~Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and
winner of the Nobel Prize in literature

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I expect there are many writers, like Neruda, as well as artists and musicians who have found a voice in the rain as it evokes strong emotions in the human heart. In some unfathomable way I even believe rain is wedded to the human soul. So it is that I am drawn into its web and mystery whenever it blesses this arid and often drought-ridden land where I live. I’m not only intoxicated by the sounds and sights of it but also the whole other level of interest it creates in the garden and other earthly places.

Like billowing clouds,
Like the incessant gurgle of the brook
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.
~ St. Hildegard von Bingen

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The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands… ~Deuteronomy 28:12   ✝

**Upper collage created by Natalie from her photo archives; lower collage created from images via Pinterest

730. Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos. Ice cream is happiness condensed. ~Don Kardong, Jessie Lane Adams

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In everyone’s life, at some time,
our inner fire goes out.
It is then burst into flame
by an encounter with another human being.
We should all be thankful for 
those people
who rekindle the inner spirit.
~Albert Schweitzer

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This is a bit of a strange post for Mother’s Day, but then there are those who say I am a bit strange, and truth be told, I might be. And I normally don’t post more than once a day, but while what happened today was fresh in my mind, I decided to go ahead with it. I’ve written several posts now about my childhood in which I’ve talked about how wonderful it was, and it truly was. In one of them, however, I also added that like all else in life, it was not without hurtful events, some of which came about because of my mother. Then in caring for mom who suffered from dementia at the end of her life, things became very arduous and wounding. As a result, since then I’ve prayed over and over again that the Lord would help me forgive and forget as much as possible and help me replace the bad “stuff” with remembrances of the happy and good times. Okay, I’m sure by now you all are asking yourselves, where is she going with this? How could this possibly have anything to do with ice cream as her lead and photos indicate? Funny, how the Lord works sometimes, isn’t it?! Well you see, it goes like this: while eating strawberry ice cream today, memories of my Mother’s unequaled, homemade ice cream flooded my mind with memories of the joy and happiness that was a part of life most of the time at my mother’s house. My mom was THE very best cook in the whole wide world. That’s why over the years, my friends were always thrilled to get an invitation to her house. In fact, I sometimes wonder if my husband married me because of who I am or because of my mom’s mashed potatoes. Well, that’s neither here nor there; I really just wrote this to thank the Lord for what happened with the ice cream today and to wish all of you a Happy Mother’s day. Even if you, who are reading this have never birthed a child, I wish you the same because everyone mothers other people in one way or another at times. And as for old Albert Schweitzer’s words, he was right in a way; it was a sort of a fire that had gone out, and though the encounter was with ice cream instead of another human being, it helped, maybe not to rekindle as much as to work, some healing in my inner spirit.

“‘Each of you must respect your mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. ~Leviticus 19:3   ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage created by Natalie

727. All things seem possible in May. ~Edwin Way Teale

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If it’s drama that you sigh for, plant a garden and you’ll get it.
You will know the thrill of battle fighting foes that will beset it.
If you long for entertainment and for pageantry most glowing,
plant a garden and this summer spend your time
with green things growing.
~Edward A. Guest

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O such a commotion under the ground,
When March called, “Ho there! Ho!”
Such spreading of rootlets far and wide,
Such whisperings to and fro!

“Are you ready?” the Snowdrop asked,
“Tis time to start, you know.”
“Almost, my dear,” the Scilla replied,
“I’ll follow as soon as you go.”

Then “Ha! Ha! Ha!” a chorus came
Of laughter sweet and slow
From millions of flowers under the ground,
Yes, millions beginning to grow.

“I’ll promise my blossoms,” the Crocus said,
“When I hear the blackbird sing.”
And straight thereafter Narcissus cried,
“My silver and gold I’ll bring.” “

And ‘ere they are dulled,” another spoke,
“The hyacinth bells shall ring.”
But the violet only murmured, “I’m here,”
And sweet grew the air of spring.

Then “Ha! Ha! Ha!” a chorus came
Of laughter sweet and low
From millions of flowers under the ground,
Yes, millions beginning to grow.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. ~Isaiah 61:11   ✝

**Image via Pinterest