422. The wings of angels are often found on the backs of the least likely people. ~Eric Honeycutt

Angels deliver fate to our doorstep–
and anywhere else it is needed.
~Jessi Lane Adams

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My back and knee are hurting more so than usual today, and I’ve been fighting off feeling sorry for myself. Thankfully it doesn’t take long for me to snap out of that invitation to a pity party when I remember something that happened a year or so ago. James and I were going to a movie downtown, and as we rounded a corner, I who was lost in a “blue funk” heard a voice I didn’t recognize say something. I looked around to see who it was and encountered a man missing both legs sitting in a wheelchair. And he, a homeless and crippled black man, said again with a huge smile on his face, “God bless you!”

Amazing! A man, asking nothing of or from me, with no home, not knowing where he’d sleep that night nor where his next meal was coming from was asking the Lord to bless me, an obviously ambulatory and much more financially secure white woman. Now, how glad am I that I remember that man, his smile, and his blessing on days like today when I’m inclined to feel discouraged from my long and ongoing bouts of chronic pain. Whenever I think on it, it reminds me that every day is an opportunity to honor God for His gifts and His “angels unawares.” I pray that wherever this man is today that he’s greeted with a host of smiles and that he still finds reasons to rejoice and be glad in the day the Lord has given him.  For how well clothed in God’s compassion was he the day our paths crossed!

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. ~Colossians 3:12   ✝

Thank you, 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.

** Mixed media image via Pinterest

391. Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace. ~May Sarton

An edited blessing from the Celtic oral tradition of the 1st millennium and an edited passage from A RETREAT WITH ST. PATRICK:

Bless us O Lord,
You who are the peace of all things calm,
the place to hide from harm,
the light that shines in the dark,
the heart’s eternal spark,
the door that’s open wide
welcoming all to come inside.

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Lord, grant us Your wisdom to help us make good choices, Your strength to uphold us through life’s storms, Your eyes to look at others with compassion, Your ear to enhance our listening to their cries, Your hand to uphold us when faced with trials, and Your shield to protect us from that which and/or those who would do us harm.

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 ✝

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.

275. Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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This the garden’s magic,
That through the sunny hours
The gardener who tends it,
Himself outgrows his flowers.

He grows by gift of patience,
Since he who sows must know
That only in the Lord’s good time
Does any seedling grow.

He learns from buds unfolding,
From each tight leaf unfurled,
That his own heart, expanding,
Is one with all the world.

He bares his head to sunshine,
His bending back a sign
Of grace, and ev’ry shower becomes
His sacramental wine.

And when at last his labors
Bring forth the very stuff
And substance of all beauty
This is reward enough.
~Marie Nettleton Carroll

Patience, what a difficult thing to master!  At least it has been and still is for me at times.  But as Emerson and Carroll assert, part of a garden’s magic is the gift of patience.   So among other things I am learning that the anticipation of what unfolds from within the bud is almost as sweet as the blossom itself.  Emory Austen said, “Some days there won’t be a song in your heart.  Sing anyway.”  With that in mind I’m gonna be patient this week, be glad my snapdragons are blooming, believe that rain will come, and sing away as I continue to wait for my tulips to unfurl and this decade-long drought to end.

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.  ~Romans 8:25  ✝

232. Adopt the pace of nature:  her secret is patience.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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How good it is to center down!  To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by!  The streets of our mind seethe with endless traffic; our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences, while something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull.  We look at ourselves in this waiting moment–the kinds of people we are.  The questions persist; what are we doing with our lives? What is the end of our doings?  Where is my treasure?  As we listen, floating up through all the jangling echoes of our turbulence, there is a sound of another kind–a deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear.  It moves directly to the core of our being.  Our questions are answered, our spirits are refreshed, and we move back into the traffic of our daily rounds with the peace of the Eternal in our step.  How good it is to center down!  ~Excerpt from For the Inward Journey by Howard Thurman, American author, philosopher, theologian, educator

Happy is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors.  ~Proverbs 8:34  ✝