Tag Archives: Sorrow

1087. I can hear you making small holes in the silence rain… ~Excerpted line from a poem by Jerry Hughes

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Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby…
~Excerpt from a poem by Langston Hughes

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Listen to the rain! Each drop whispers secrets as it falls in many notes. All in tune the pitter pattering of their rich elemental sounds reveal a holy, life-giving melody written by the hand of God. Yahweh’s songs tell of filling lakes and streams to quench the thirst of earth and man and of replenishing gardens so as to provide food for the bodies and beauty for the souls of His children. There too are songs that like tears which empty the heart of sorrow fall like mercy from above to bless and heal in their quiet persistence.

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying

what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again

in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,

smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches

and the grass below.
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
of the rain.
~Edited excerpt from a poem
by Mary Oliver

I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. ~Leviticus 26:4 ✝

**Images found on Pinterest

930. The spirits of the air live on the smells of fruit; and joy, with pinions light, roves round the gardens, or sits singing in the trees. ~William Blake

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And November sad,—a psalm
Tender, trustful, full of balm,
Thou must breathe in spirits calm.
~Caroline May

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I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its tone is mellower, its colours are richer, and it is tinged with a little sorrow. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and its content. ~Lin Yutang

I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. ~Leviticus 26:4  ✝

**Image via 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

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

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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

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   ✝

712. Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny. ~C. S. Lewis

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Life finds me down, but not out. Hope finds me exhausted, but not emotionally bankrupt. Faith finds me weary, but not willing to stop pressing on. Health, you can try hard to drag me along, but I can’t be drug along when I’m in God’s hands. He holds me. ~Heather Mertens, fellow blogger at: http://40yearwanderer.com/blog/

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Sometimes, I am startled out of myself, like this morning when the wild geese came squawking, flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek across the sky made me think about my life, the places of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief has strung me out to dry. And then the geese come calling, the leader falling back when tired, another taking her place. Hope is borne on wings. Look at the trees. They turn to gold for a brief while, then lose it all each November. Through the cold months, they stand, take the worst weather has to offer. And still, they put out shy green leaves come April, come May. The geese glide over the cornfields, land on the pond with its sedges and reeds. You do not have to be wise. Even a goose knows how to find shelter, where the corn still lies in the stubble and dried stalks. All we do is pass through here, the best way we can. They stitch up the sky, and it is whole again. ~Barbara Crooker

I read this article above at: http://www.gratefulness.org and thought it was too great not to share.

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.  ~Isaiah 43:2   ✝

685. Man is a knot into which relationships are tied. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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Someone to tell it to
is one of the fundamental
needs of human beings.
~Miles Franklin

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Have you ever pondered why we, any of us, blog? Or write books? Or pen poetry? Or compose music? Or draw? Or paint? I have and I think the quote above by Miles Franklin hits the proverbial nail squarely on the head. We, who pour out our lives or thoughts or passions or joys or hurts or whatever in some way, do in fact appear to have some compelling and fundamental need to do so. Emily Dickinson added another aspect to this idea when she described it, “as a shelter to speak” to some trusted other in her life. Like her, many of us, I believe, find not only great comfort but also a kind of self-soothing safety when we, individually or collectively, find ways to express ourselves to those we come to trust and admire. This is best described by the Swedish proverb that says a “shared joy is a double joy; a shared sorrow is half a sorrow.” In addition, I find something very cathartic and cleansing about “spilling my guts” to an “art or soul” mate given me by the Lord; they are the ones who give me the wings and courage to be all that He created me to be.

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort
of feeling safe with a person,
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but pouring them all out, just as they are,
chaff and grain together
certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping, and
with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.
~George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. ~Proverbs 17:17   ✝

**Image found on Pinterest

638. Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving. ~Khalil Gibran

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What greater thing is there for two human souls
than to feel that they are joined together
to strengthen each other in all labor,
to minister to each other in all sorrow,
to share with each other in all gladness,
to be one with each other
in the silent unspoken memories?
~George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans)

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Close your eyes, baby
Follow my heart
Call on the memories
Here in the dark
We’ll let the magic
Take us away
Back to the feelings
We shared when they played:
In the still of the night
Hold me darlin’, hold me tight,
Oh so real, so right
Lost in the fifties tonight
These precious hours
We know can’t survive
But love’s all that matters
While the past is alive
Now and for always
Till time disappears
We’ll hold each other…
~Excerpted lines from “Lost in the 50’s Tonight” recorded
by Ronnie Milsap and written
by Seals, Troy Harold/Reid, Mike/Parris, Fredericke

Follow God’s example; therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. ~Ephesians 5:1   ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage created by Natalie

627. Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all come. ~Michelangelo

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The human mind is capable of excitement
without the application of gross and violent stimulants;
and he must have a very faint perception of its
beauty and dignity who does not know this.
~William Wordsworth

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I’m so blessed my Lord.
I can see you
In all the lovely things
So fine and true.
I see you in the beauty
Of the flowers and the rain.
I see you between the lines.
I can see you
Even when I’m lonely and in pain.
I see you in the beauty of the stars at night.
I see you Lord
In sorrow and in happiness.
I see you in the glory
Of sweet success.I see you Lord
Every hour, everyday.
I can see you Lord
Whenever I pray.
~Excerpted lyrics from a song
by Aiza Seguerra

The Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. ~Psalm 146:8  ✝

** Image via Pinterest, text added by Natalie

552. So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days. ~Colette, French novelist and performer

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Wild Geese 
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

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Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
~Mary Oliver

Several of my readers have recently voiced, either by word or in the sounds of their silence between the lines, a measure of sorrow and despair. Know that you are loved and held in the arms of Divine Grace as well as in my heart and prayers. May you soon encounter the “angel of hope” bearing the “commonplace little miracle” which will “mend again the necklace of your days.”

You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit. ~Job 10:12  ✝

** Image via Pinterest

551. The sun’ll come out tomorrow; bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun. ~Excerpt from ANNIE written by Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin

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Just thinkin’ about
Tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs,
And the sorrow
‘Til there’s none!

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When I’m stuck in a day
That’s gray,
And lonely,
I just stick out my chin
And Grin,
And Say,
Oh!
The sun’ll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
‘Til tomorrow
Come what may
Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
I love ya Tomorrow!
You’re always A day A way!
~All lyrics above are from ANNIE
written by Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin

As you can see in my photo, Jack Frost came for a brief visit during the night and added a touch of icy sparkle to the edges of a yellowed, fading leafy nugget. And after a series of gray, gloomy, below-freezing days, the sun has come out filling our hearts with hope and glorifying autumn’s remnants with lovely, luscious light.

As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise You more and more. ~Psalm 71:14   ✝