Tag Archives: Love

1052. 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

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What did you notice today?

The dawn’s light;
the bird on the wing;
the clouds over your head;
the breeze as dried grasses swayed;
the sun as it journeyed across the heavens;
the in and out movement of your breath;
the pumping of blood in your veins;
the regular beating of your heart;
the falling shades of night.

What did you hear?

What made you smile?

What made you laugh?

What made you cry?

What made you sad?

What astonished you?

What touched you deep within?

What made you thankful?

What made you feel alive?

Should these and more not all be things to take notice of? After all isn’t each day a gift? And aren’t all the abilities to feel and do these things a part of the gift? Can anything you do or say bring this day or the opportunities it offered back?

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. ~Psalm 138:24  ✝

1043. Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same… ~Pearl S. Buck

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The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.
She never existed before.
The woman existed, but
 the mother, never.
A mother is something absolutely new.
~Rajneesh

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If in the passage through the final doors of life gallop dark storms of senile dementia, we who are its witnesses and victims must view the damage as a sickness in and of the flesh and not a failing of the heart nor its love. For it is not what is in the mind or flesh of those who have to endure uncontrollable, internal storms which ultimately rage, worsen, and extinguish their lives that matters; the important thing is the inextricable cords of love that once connected us to them. Mother and child bonds are as strong as our connection to the Maker of all life, and so maybe that’s why on this rainy, winter’s day, my mom has visited my thoughts again. Or it could be the recent passage of her birthday or the gloom of the day that triggered memories of the disquieting breach of peace that caring for her became during the last 7 months of her life. When I invited my mom to come live in our home, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. But what I didn’t realize was that our merged footsteps would upon occasion painfully lead us, partially because of her worsening dementia, to moments which were not our finest hours. Nor did I envision the treachery of steep climbs when we had to cross over slippery, rocky ground into new and challenging territories. However, even though there were terrible moments when we would go up and down as well as in and out of hellish, emotional roller coasters, we coped better at times than we had in the past and with more tolerance of our individual differences. My mother loved her children, but in her newness to motherhood I don’t think she ever really did know how to accept or handle me, her strong-willed, out-spoken, and highly sensitive first born child. Nevertheless, by the Grace of God, we made it through those trying days, and there were even a few of them along the way when we traversed some unexpected, joyful paths. So it is in the quiet grayness of this day that I give thanks for her and for God’s mercy. Mary Catherine and I had long been and would probably always have been enigmas unto one another, but despite our dissimilar traits an abiding love was strong in the sharing of our intertwined lives. Thus I try now to focus not on our differences, inabilities, and disagreements but continue to seek and remember the inherent goodness in the child of God that was my mother. And I pray almost every day for acceptance and forgiveness of her limitations which remain an unsurrendered source of occasionally festering, life-long scars. Forgiveness is, at least in my way of thinking, the miracle of all miracles, and I’ve long believed in miracles.

Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. ~Isaiah 58:8  ✝

1041. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter,
and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of
little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
~Khalil Gibran

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According to Melinda T. Owens “the Egyptians believed that the heart was the source of the soul and of memory, emotions, and personality. That is why they preserved the heart during mummification but threw the brain away. Later on, Aristotle said that the heart was also the source of intelligence, motion, and sensation.” After having a child I too have come to believe such things about the human heart. Why so? For one thing, while a woman is carrying a child in utero, the unborn babe continuously hears the mother’s heartbeat. For that reason after being born an infant can often be silenced from crying by holding him/her up on the mother’s shoulder so that her heartbeat is discernible again. When the child hears her familiar heartbeat, which by the way is a one of a kind as no two heartbeats are exactly the same, the child is calmed and comforted. Thus early on I think we come to associate love with the heartbeat of the woman who first reveals that emotion to us even though it may not be on a conscious level that we come to that conclusion. Okay, okay so maybe that’s a crazy idea, but then it’s not the first time I’ve been told I was full of it.

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As I sat in the hospital today visiting my brother-in-law who has just had the heart transplant, I was shown the picture above of the human heart, and in a way one can make out the shape of the hearts we’ve come to associate with love. And that my friends is what generated by musings above plus giving me a segue into an update on his recovery. Soon after the surgery last Wednesday, Dick was taken to Cardiac Intensive Care. Then yesterday, after 4 days in ICU, they removed all the IV’s (and there were about 20 or more of them it looked like) and all but one drainage tube and subsequently moved him out of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and into a regular room. Since the second day they’ve told us over and over again that the markers on the functioning of his new heart are “perfect,” and he says that he has not been in any pain whatsoever up to this point. So as it stands now there is a chance that he will get to go home tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then Thursday. How amazingly awesome is that and our God?! That’s why once more I want to praise God and thank all of you who have been praying and lighting candles for Dick. Other than the miracle of childbirth and my recovery from a stroke 3 years ago, I don’t know that I have ever witnessed anything any more miraculous than those 2 things and Dick’s recovery from this transplant. That’s not to say that there aren’t still some hurdles to overcome such as his body trying to reject the heart, the threat of diabetes as a result of the massive doses of steroids he’s having to take to try to prevent that rejection, the threat of skin cancer because he’s so fair skinned and has no immune system and so  on.  Nonetheless I for one can’t help but believe that the good Lord would not have brought him along this far and this successfully to let it all go downhill now. And that is my prayer.

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. ~Proverbs 4:23  ✝

**Images found on Pinterest

1018. Expectancy is the atmosphere for miracles. ~Edwin Louis Cole

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Even if I know I shall never change the masses,
never transform anything permanent,
all I ask is that the good things also have
their place, their refuge.
~Richard Wagner

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Scripture tells us that we are made in the image of God, and I expect that has nothing to do the with our faces and everything to do with our hearts. Therefore through us He can bring to fruition all that is within His limitless power to do. How?

Our hearts are able to feel another’s anguish, Our eyes can see the lacking needs of others, Our mouths can deliver His smile to light up darkness, Our voices can declare quiet, comforting words for ears to hear, Our hands can administer compassionate healing, And our legs can carry us wherever we need to go to accomplish such things.

How then can one who breathes the very breath of a Holy God, who bears His very image do anything less than deliver anything He asks of us. That is the purpose that should drive our lives. It has never been all about self, for truly what is love, and all humans yearn for and must have love, without a place to spend it, and where better to start spending than with someone in need. Honor the gifts you have been given, rejoice in them, and use them.

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them male and female he created them. ~Genesis 1:27  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

1014. I love at least one night by the Christmas tree to sing and feel the quiet holiness of that time that’s set apart to celebrate love, friendship, and God’s gift of the Christ child. ~Amy Grant

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Christmas in Bethlehem. The ancient dream:
a cold, clear night made brilliant by a glorious star,
the smell of incense, shepherds and wise men
falling to their knees in adoration of the sweet baby,
the incarnation of perfect love.
~Lucinda Franks

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When everyone had gone
I sat in the library
With the small silent tree,
She and I alone.
How softly she shone!

And for the first time then
For the first time this year,
I felt reborn again,
I knew love’s presence near.
Love distant, love detached,

And strangely without weight,
Was with me in the night
When everyone had gone
And the garland of pure light
Stayed on, stayed on.
~May Sarton

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” ~Luke 2:8-11  ✝

**Image found on Pinterest

1006. My beloved is mine and I am His… ~Excerpt from Song of Songs 2:16 ✝

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Wilt thou love God, as he thee? Then digest,
My Soul, this wholesome meditation,
How God the Spirit, by Angels waited on
In heaven, doth make His Temple in thy breast.
~Excerpt from the Holy Sonnet XV
by John Donne

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Christianity is a love story. It is about love lost at Eden and love restored at Calvary. We alone out of all creation were made not mere to serve God but to love Him and be loved by Him. It was not the angels and archangels whom He made for love; He made them for ministry (Hebrews 1:14); He made us for intimacy (v. 13: Ephesians 2:6).

The heart of God, the desire of God, the greatest command of God, is not about obedience, not about worship, not about service, not about study, but about love–loving God with everything we have, even as He loves us with everything He has. But, sadly, we have often replaced love with law, intimacy with theology, delight in God with duty to God, being found with God with being sound about God. Our speech about God has the cold sterility of the scientist rather than the thrill of the poet. We have interpreted texts, but we have somehow failed to experience the reality behind them. The Holy Spirit today and always is calling His church back to intimacy with Jesus. ~These are passages from Chapter 2 of a Kindle Book, MORE, written by Rev. Simon Ponsonby, at St. Aldates in Oxford, UK.

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ~Deuteronomy 6:5  ✝
Jesus replied,“Love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” ~Matthew 22:37  ✝
He(Jesus) answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ~Luke 10:27  ✝
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” ~Mark 12:30-31  ✝

**As we draw closer to Christmas and ready hearts to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, I thought this was a particularly good excerpt to read and “digest.” I pray that Rev. Ponsonby doesn’t mind my sharing this portion of his book.

**Image found on Pinterest

1004. Prayer is exhaling the spirit of man and inhaling the spirit of God. ~Edwin Keith

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I believe in God, and that there are pieces of him, called love and goodness, in everyone. I also believe in prayer, not the memorized type mumbled in church but the spontaneous kind spoken, ironically, in the last breath of the day, when the lamp has been dimmed and the bedspread drawn down, and it’s just you and those pieces of God in you, alone…. I suspect that when a man grows too big to kneel, then he is destined to fall. ~Joe Kita

By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life. ~Psalm 42:8  ✝

**The image is of monarda that grew in garden last summer.

1003. We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night. ~Jack Kornfield

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Joy does not simply happen to us.
We have to choose joy
and keep choosing it every day.
~Henri J.M. Nouwen

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Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light. It was what
I was born for –

to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself

over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
~Excerpt from the poem, Mindful,
by Mary Oliver

…for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness. ~Psalm 26:3  ✝

**Image found on Pinterest

987. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. ~Helen Keller

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Another mass murder. Another attack against innocence. Another attack against personal freedoms. Another attack against human rights. Another regrettable tragedy. Another senseless loss for friends and family to bear. Another reason to fear for our safety. Another threat to what people hold dear. Another excuse to doubt God for the unbeliever. Thus what happened today breaks my heart again, and I pray for the victims, their families, and the responders. But what today’s horrific events can never do is steal my hope. While not yet ready to die, I will not live afraid, I will not let madmen rob me of my faith and happiness, I will not let madmen steal what time I have left on earth to worship God and enjoy the life I’ve been given. I am Yahweh’s child, I am of His image and the light of His love, and I will continue to shine His light whenever and wherever I can.

The particular mind of the ocean
Filling the coastline’s longing
With such brief harvest
Of elegant, vanishing waves
Is like the mind of time
Opening up shapes of days.

As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them
The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.
Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have been quenched.

The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.
The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.
Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.
~John O’Donohue

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. ~Isaiah 41:10   ✝

972. Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again. ~Joseph Campbell

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If you’re really listening,
if you’re awake to the poignant beauty of the world,
your heart breaks regularly.
In fact, your heart is made to break;
its purpose is to burst open again and again
so that it can hold evermore wonders.
~Andrew Harvey

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Teach me how to trust
my heart,
my mind,
my intuition,
my inner knowing,
the senses
of my body,
the blessings of my spirit,
teach me to trust these
things
so that I may enter my
sacred space and love
beyond my fear
And thus
walk in balance
with the passing of each
glorious sun…
~A Prayer of the Lakota

Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare. ~Psalm 40:5   ✝