865. Silence is the language of God. All else is poor translation. ~Rumi

September 8, 2015 by nataliescarberry

May the stars carry your sadness away,
May the flowers fill your heart with beauty,
May hope forever wipe away your tears,
And, above all else, may silence make you strong.
~Chief Dan George

When Christ said that man does not live by bread alone, he spoke of hunger. This hunger was not the hunger of the body. It was not the hunger for bread. He spoke of the hunger that begins deep down in the very depths of our being in silence. He spoke of a need as vital as breath. He spoke of our hunger for love. Love is something you and I must have. We must have it because our spirit feeds upon it. We must have it because without it we become weak and faint. Without love our self-esteem weakens. Without it our courage fails. Without love we can no longer look out confidently at the world…But with love, we are creative. With it, we march tirelessly. With it, and with it alone, we are able to sacrifice for others. ~Chief Dan George

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. ~Psalm 13:5 ✝

**Images via Pinterest and the Internet

858. Faith sees a beautiful blossom in a bulb, a lovely garden in a seed, and a giant oak in an acorn. ~William Arthur Ward

September 2, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Faith is that tiny beautiful songbird in
one’s heart that sings wonderful melodies
even during the darkest moments
because it feels and sees the divine light
that is yet to arrive with the dawn.

Faith enables us to believe in something,
something that may be beyond  any
rationale, reasoning or logic.
And faith is also our inner strength that
empowers us to bring our dreams and vision
to fruition, with the Grace of God.
So take a leap in the unknown with
full faith in God and yourself.
~Author Unknown

The earth is filled with your love, Lord: teach me your decrees. ~Psalm 119:64 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

855. A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, “darkness” on the walls of his cell. ~C.S. Lewis

August 30, 2015 by nataliescarberry

When I saw others straining toward God, I did not understand it,
for though I may have had Him less than they did,
there was no one blocking the way between Him and me…
~Rainer Maria Rilke

Dawn broke yet again this morning, Praise Yahweh
The sun brought back light from out of darkness, Praise Elohim
Creatures stirred fulfilling ordained purposes, Praise Adonai
The breeze, a holy breath, blew through Eden, Praise Jehovah
Flowers bloomed offering their nectar, Praise El Shaddai
Grasses grew proffering food for cattle, Praise God
Blood yet flows through my veins, Praise Jesus
Air yet fills my lungs with breath, Praise the Lord
Holiness rises still from all the eyes can see
and all the ears can hear, Praise the Ancient of Days
I am alive by His Grace, and so I persist, persist
in praising the Holy One who created everything that is.
What a gift, what a privilege to adore and praise Him
by whatever name that has come down through the ages!
~Natalie Scarberry

Since ancient times, roses have symbolized God at work in whatever situation they appear. The intricate and elegant rose offers a glimpse of a masterful Creator’s active presence in Creation. As this popular flower blossoms, its buds gradually open to reveal blossoms with lovely layers — an illustration of how spiritual wisdom unfolds in people’s lives. The strong, sweet scent of a rose brings to mind the powerful sweetness of love, which is the essence of God. ~Via the Internet

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ~John 1:1-5 ✝

854. On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it. ~Jules Renard

August 29, 2015 by nataliescarberry

When we recognize the virtues, the talent, the beauty of Mother Earth, something is born in us, some kind of connection, love is born. You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment. In that insight of inter-being, it is possible to have real communication with the Earth, which is the highest form of prayer. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Sense the blessings of the earth in the perfect arc of a ripe tangerine, the taste of warm, fresh bread, the circling flight of birds, the lavender color of the sky shining in a late afternoon rain puddle, the million times we pass other beings in our cars and shops and out among the trees without crashing, conflict, or harm. ~Jack Kornfield

In the beginning God created the heavens and earth. ~Genesis 1:1 ✝
Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. ~Genesis 2:7 ✝
The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. ~Psalm 24:1 ✝

**Images via Pinterest, collage by Natalie

849. Yellow-the hue of that portion of the visible spectrum lying between green and orange, evoked in the human observer by radiant energy… ~The Dictionary

August 24, 2015 by nataliescarberry

It has been a kind of yellowlicious day,
and what could such be, one might say?
Well, yellowlicious is as
yellowlicious does,
and what yellowlicious does is color
our days with the brightest of luscious flowers.
~A Dr. Seussical kind of query
by Natalie Scarberry

I caught
a yellow rhyme
in my hands, and
it fluttered
like a bevy of
bright butterfly wings

Since yellow is
the brightest color
in the rainbow,
why shouldn’t it
pen flaxen happiness
in the sunlight

As it spreads
its luminous wings
and paints across
the yard in swaths of gold,
landing here and there
as nimbly as a butterfly

Now I can’t help but
wonder if one couldn’t
catch such dazzling
poesy and turn it
into butterfly smiles
for the whole world to see.
~Heavily edited and adapted poem
by Gregory Golden

God your love is so precious. You protect people in the shadow of your wings. ~Psalm 36:7 ✝

848. Oh what a beautiful morning…the sounds of earth are like music. ~Excerpted lyrics from a song written by George and Ira Gershwin

August 23, 2015 by nataliescarberry

When you arise in the morning,
think of what a privilege it is to be alive –
to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
~Marcus Aurelius

Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness…Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. ~Psalm 150:1-2, 6 ✝

**Pink morning glories in the day’s first light in my garden.

841. On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined! ~Lord Byron

August 14, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The music of the spheres has your name on its dance card.
So what are you waiting for?
Get on up and dance to the music!
~Natalie

We ought to dance with rapture that we might be alive…
and part of the living, incarnate cosmos.
~D.H. Lawrence

Everything in the universe has rhythm.
Everything dances.
~Maya Angelou

Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded
from the curriculum of all noble education;
dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words,
and, need I add that one must also
be able to dance with the pen?
~Friedrich Nietzsche

Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav’n.
~Alexander Pope

To be creative means to be in love with life.
You can be creative only if you love life enough
that you want to enhance its beauty,
you want to bring a little more music to it,
a little more poetry to it,
a little more dance to it.
~Osho

Dancing can reveal all the mystery
that music conceals.
~Charles Baudelaire

To watch us dance is to  hear our hearts speak.
~Hopi Indian Saying

Dance, even if you have nowhere
to do it but your living room.
~Kurt Vonnegut

Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world,
for I would ride with you upon the wind
and dance upon the mountains like a flame!
~William Butler Yeats

I would believe only in a God
that knows how to dance.
~Friedrich Nietzsche

You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy. ~Psalm 30:11 ✝

**Images via pinterest; collages by Natalie

829. In every man’s heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty. ~Christopher Morley

August 2, 2015 by nataliescarberry

That breath you just took is a gift. The song of the birds you hear is a gift. The beauty your eyes behold is a gift. Beauty is all around us and it declares the existence of a holy Being. This exquisite flower, a hauntingly magnificent sunset or sunrise, the splendor of oceans or mountains–all these things were created to proclaim God’s presence in the world. And we are designed to be awed by nature’s beauty because it opens us up to the knowledge of the Lord’s holy Presence. It is a gift. It is a miracle. It is an invitation from the Maker of the universe to get to know Him on a very personal level and then to declare His Presence, His goodness, His grace, His love, His mercy to the world. Jesus loves you and He’s waiting today and every day for you to join Him in the Divine dance of life.

And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty: the whole earth is full of His glory.” ~Isaiah 6:3 ✝

825. What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply, becomes part of us. ~Helen Keller

July 30, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Thank you, Monsieur Monet, for all the beauty your art and gardens have created for your fellow man to enjoy. What you felt in your heart continues to touch our hearts.

Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. ~1 Peter 3:4 ✝

823. Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love. ~Claude Monet

July 29, 2015 by nataliescarberry

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

Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet
and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale
‘til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Monet’s ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene over and over again in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of seasons. And as he had unwavering confidence in himself as an artist, he would do whatever it took to advance his career including purchasing a boat at the age of thirty-three which with his knowledge of boats he rendered into a studio boat, an act significant both on a personal and a practical level. At Giverny Monet’s lily ponds would become the subjects of his best-known works. It was in 1899 that he began painting the water lilies, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature, and later in the series of large-scale paintings that were to occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life.

So be very careful to love the Lord your God. ~Joshua 23:11 ✝

**I found the above information about Monet on the Internet; the first collage I created included my photos of poppies at Giverny along with a photo of Monet’s famous “poppies” painting. In the second collage I included a photo of one of Monet’s paintings of his Japanese bridge and lily pond along with some photos I took of such. Then for the final collage I used a photo of a signed painting of his studio boat and an assortment of flowers I found at Giverny along with a part of two rooms in his house and signs pointing the way to Giverny.

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Love