896. Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. ~Victor Hugo

October 8, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Music by itself carries us beyond
words and thoughts into the realm of feeling.
~Jane E. Vennard

It has been officially autumn for a couple of weeks now, but the temperature and unchanging leaves tell a different story. Theirs is a tale of summer, a summer not yet wanting to relinquish its throne. While begrudging that fact as I sat in a church meeting yesterday, a man quietly entered the room, sat down at a piano behind me, started playing a familiar tune, and as if by magic changed everything for the better. For almost immediately after he began playing, autumn’s glory flowed down his arms and oozed from his fingertips onto the piano’s keys. As he played on, the tinkling sounds of the musical notes emulated more and more the spectacle of autumn’s falling leaves. Enthralled I turned so I could watch him play and noticed he was not reading sheet music. Instead he was playing solely from memory and out of his heart. Thus as Vennard suggests, music does remove the limitations of words and speaks to us of things bigger and grander than the mere scope of language can, so much so that it is indeed able to carry us into and from the “realm of feeling.” Not only that but when we quiet our bodies and minds and listen carefully, we are also able to discern, in the silence of music’s pauses, the holy footfalls of Yahweh’s abiding Presence in Creation.

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song music. ~Psalm 98:4 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

http://https://youtu.be/TZ0cPnOilHs

877. Your heart is just a beatbox for the song of your life. ~Sandi Thom

September 20, 2015 by nataliescarberry

I have lived pain, and my life can tell:
I only deepen the wounds of the world
when I neglect to give thanks for
the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July
and the song of crickets on humid summer nights
and the rivers that run and the stars that rise
and the rain that falls and all the good things
that a good God gives.
~Ann Voskamp

You unravel me with a melody and
surround me with a song.
I’m encircled in Your songs of deliverance
and know that I am your child, oh God.
So I thank You and praise Your Holy Name.
All I want now, dear Lord, is to be still, resting
in Your Grace, knowing that you are God.
~Random lyrics and thoughts borrowed
from songs sung in church today, Natalie

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. ~Excerpt from Psalm 40:3 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

876. Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. ~Ambrose Bierce

September 19, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Sometimes I do get to places just when
God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.
~Ansel Adams

For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies;
For the love which from our birth,
Over and around us lies;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

For the wonder of each hour,
Of the day and of the night;
Hill and vale and tree and flow’r,
Sun and moon, and stars of light;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind’s delight;
For the mystic harmony,
Linking sense to sound and sight;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.
~Folliot S. Pierpont

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. ~Excerpt from Psalm 40:3 ✝

852. Silence is exhilarating at first – as noise is – but there is a sweetness to silence outlasting exhilaration, akin to the sweetness of listening and the velvet of sleep. ~Edward Hoagland

August 27, 2015 by nataliescarberry

God’s poet is silence! His song is unspoken
And yet so profound, and so loud, and so far,
That it thrills you and fills you in measures unbroken—
The unceasing song of the first morning star….
~Joaquin Miller

There is a silence
into which the world cannot intrude.
There is an ancient peace you carry
in your heart and have not lost.
There is a sense of holiness in you
the thought of sin has never touched.
All this today you will remember.
~From a COURSE IN MIRACLES
by Marianne Williamson

He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters. ~Psalm 23:2 ✝

**Image of the water lily found on Pinterest

839. And soon, too soon, we part with pain to sail o’er silent seas again. ~Thomas Moore

August 12, 2015 by nataliescarberry

It’s an art to live with pain…
to mix the light into gray.
~Eddie Vedder

I have lived pain, and my life can tell,
but I only deepen the wounds
when I neglect to give thanks for
the heavy perfume of wild roses in August
and the song of crickets on humid summer nights
and the rivers that run and the stars that rise
and the rain that falls and all the
good things that a good God gives.
~Edited and adapted excerpt
from Ann Voskamp

The migraine rages on, and once more I’m sailing the silent seas of pain. Though it be a life long story, the Lord has and will again bring me back one day to dry land. ~Natalie

But as for me, afflicted and in pain–may your salvation, God, protect me. ~Psalm 69:29 ✝

**Images found on Pinterest

818. Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Smell the rain and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential…. ~Ashley Smith

July 24, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The doors we open and close
each day decide the lives we live.
~Flora Whittemore

Life is…
Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise it, fulfill it.
Life is a sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.
~Mother Teresa

In Him(Christ) was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ~John 1:4 ✝

**Edited image via Pinterest

811. A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. ~Chinese Proverb

July 17, 2015 by nataliescarberry

In order to see birds,
it is necessary to become
part of the silence.
~Robert Lynd

Birds are a miracle
because they prove to us
there is a finer,
simpler state of being
which we may attain.
~Doug Coupland

You have to believe in happiness,
or happiness never comes…
Ah, that’s the reason a bird can sing –
On its darkest day he believes in Spring.
~Douglas Malloch

There is nothing in which the birds
differ more from man than the
way in which they can build and yet
leave a landscape as it was before.
~Robert Lynd

He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. ~Psalm 91:4 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

806. Be still. Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity. ~Lao Tzu 

July 12, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Whenever there is stillness
there is the still small voice,
God speaking from the whirlwind,
nature’s old song and dance…
~Annie Dillard

“I have often wondered whether especially those days when we are forced to remain idle are not precisely the days spent in the most profound activity. Whether our actions themselves, even if they do not take place until later, are nothing more than the last reverberations of a vast movement that occurs within us during idle days. In any case, it is very important to be idle with confidence, with devotion, possibly even with joy. The days when even our hands do not stir are so exceptionally quiet that it is hardly possible to raise them without hearing a whole lot.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. ~Exodus 14:14 ✝

**The image in my photo is of still waters in a local pond.

770. The flowers are nature’s jewels, with whose wealth she decks coming summer’s beauty. ~Edited excerpt by George Croly

June 13, 2015 by nataliescarberry

“Summer is coming!” the soft breezes whisper;
“Summer is coming!” the glad birdies sing.
Summer is coming – I hear her quick footsteps;
Take your last look at the beautiful Spring.
~Dora Goodale

And every stone and every star a tongue,
And every gale of wind a curious song.
The Heavens were an oracle,
and spoke  Divinity: the Earth did undertake
The office of a priest; and I
being dumb all things did come
With voices and instructions…
~Edited excerpt
by Thomas Traherne

See how wide the mouth of this gorgeous asiatic lily opens to declare God’s glory! Have a blessed weekend, my friends.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. ~Psalm 19:1-2 ✝

697. The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day He created Spring. ~Bern Williams

April 8, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The peace and beauty
of a spring day
had descended upon  the earth
like a benediction.
~Kate Chopin

Pink, pink, and more pink! Yes I know there are others colors in the garden, but what a lovely color is pink, the quiet hue on the sweet side of red. And then there are the wonderful names of the different shades of pink! What’s not to love about monikers like baby pink, berry pink, salmony pink, watermelon pink, and of course hot pink. Though most of the pinks tone down the color red, hot pink stimulates the high levels of energy associated with passion which the color red often signifies. Even in realms other than the garden pink is a revered color. For example, cities in the world are associated with it, businesses are linked to it, and then there’s the refreshing taste of pink lemonade consumed on hot summer days all over the world. It’s also a color mentioned in a host of song lyrics, and of course pink is the color of romance and young love. As a color long considered feminine, it was once a color associated with the Virgin Mary. Last but not least pink is the color of innocence, and as such it is oh so appropriate for the birthing of a new spring.

You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety. ~Job 11:18 ✝

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Song