Tag Archives: Stars

647. Awake! for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight…fill the cup before life’s liquor in its cup be dry. ~Lines from The Rubayyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald

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Every morning is a fresh beginning.
Every day is the world made new.
Today is a new day.
Today is my world made new.
I have lived my life up to this moment,
to come to this day.
This moment–this day– is as good
as any moment in all eternity.
I shall make of this day–
a heaven on earth.
This is my day of opportunity.
~Dan Custer

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Seize the morning, seize the moment, seize the day, and seize the blessings that come your way. Get rid of all hesitation, tell your loved ones how much you love them, express gratitude to the Lord above and let your spirit soar. Don’t let your history interfere with the clean slate of this new day. Be yourself, make the most of what you have, worry not about what you have not, and rejoice in the gift of life this day.

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When I stand before thee at day’s end,
thou shalt see my scars and know
that I had my wounds and also my healing.
~Rabindranath Tagore

This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. ~Psalm 118:24   ✝

637. Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end. ~Author Unknown

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I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley

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I want no world (for beautiful you are my world)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)
~Excerpted lines from a poem
by e.e. cummings

The Lord appeared to us in the past saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. ~Jeremiah 31:3   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

632. A garden is a bird’s dinner table bursting with bugs and worms and succulent berries. ~Anne Raver

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That little bird has chosen his shelter.
Above it are the stars and the deep heaven of worlds.
Yet he is rocking himself to sleep
without caring for tomorrow’s lodging,
calmly clinging to his little twig,
and leaving God to think for him.
~Martin Luther

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Red–bright, bright, glorious red! How easy it is to find in the winter landscape! Yahweh not only provided birds with sheltering places, but He also formed plants that produce colorful, and therefore easy to spot, feasts of red berries. In Scripture, we are told that we needn’t worry about what we require either because the Lord promises to provide for our needs too. However, since youth is an opiate that leads many a “fledgling” like I once was to a) believe that he/she is infallible and b) to believe he/she is the only one on the planet with a clue about anything, I foolishly thought for a time that my life was only what I was making of it. Then as time passed I began to realize there were doors that did not have to open, but they did; there were opportunities that didn’t have to present themselves, but they did; and there were misfortunes that could have occurred, but they didn’t, and so on. It’s our God-given free will which allows us to make choices that determine the outcome of our lives, and even poor choices can and do sometimes lead to a path that eventually merges back into the one the Lord wants us to travel. Looking back at such things I realize now that it’s only because of the intervention of God’s divine and saving grace that advantageous things happen. And who knows perhaps even the detours are gifts of His divine providence meant to protect the unwise sojourner from harm. Though prudence and patience are lessons I’m still trying to master, at least I’ve become more aware of the importance and necessity of listening to the Lord, consulting Him before making choices, yielding to His will and plan for my life, and living more like the birds who worry not. So on I go these days putting one foot in front of the other. In the meantime God keeps His eye on me and the sparrow, the birds feast upon the garden’s berries, and I rely more and more on the Lord, letting my little piece of Eden continue to feed my soul and remind me of His faithful provision and promises.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin…” ~Matthew 6: 25-28   ✝

**Images via Pinterest; overlay 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

608. Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don’t unravel. ~Author Unknown

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Thou hast given so much to me,
Give one thing more, — a grateful heart;
Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
As if Thy blessings had spare days,
But such a heart whose pulse may be Thy praise.
~George Herbert

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Praise the Lord and hallelujah! First, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of you who have been praying for me. I do appreciate that so much. Secondly, I want to share my good news. The orthopedic surgeon called yesterday and the knee being constructed especially for my body and bone structure will be here on February 14th, and so the surgery to replace my knee has been scheduled for Tuesday, February 17th. Thank you, Jesus! Five weeks, three days and counting…

Whatever be the depth of woe
Along the path that I must go,
I’ll sing my song—
My song of joy for all the love
That’s lavished on us from above,
And count no loss of treasure-trove
When things go wrong.
I’ll sing the sunlight, and the bright
Soft smiling stars that gem the night;
For gifts of good
That God hath spread along my way,
The lilt of birds in tuneful play,
The harvests full and flowers gay,
The whole day long
I’ll sing my song
Of gratitude!
~John Kendrick Bangs

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. ~Psalm 150:6   ✝

606. 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

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We listen too much to the television
and we listen too little to nature.
Everybody should have his personal sounds
to listen for—sounds that exhilarate,
make him feel alive, or quiet and calm…
As a matter of fact, one of the greatest sounds—
and to me it is a sound—is utter, complete silence.
~Edited lines by André Kostelanetz

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I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
And the silence of the city when it pauses,
And the silence of a man and a maid,
And the silence of the sick…
There is the silence of a great hatred,
And the silence of a great love,
And the silence of an embittered friendship.
There is the silence of a spiritual crisis,
Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured,
Comes with visions not to be uttered
Into a realm of higher life.
There is the silence that comes between husband and wife.
There is the silence of those who have failed;
And the vast silence that covers
Broken nations and vanquished leaders.
And there is the silence of age,
Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it
In words intelligible to those
who have not lived the great range of life.
~Excerpted lines from a poem
by Edgar Lee Masters

The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him.  ~Habakkuk 2:20  ✝

594. The wise still seek Him. ~Author Unknown

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The media is increasingly devoted to fear-inducing subject matter: terrorism, serial killers, environmental catastrophes, and so on. And yet, every day the Lord’s grace is made manifest in countless places and situations, and He showers blessings and outright miracles on our planet. ~Edited excerpt from JESUS CALLING by Sarah Young

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Let us remember that He has given us
the sun and the moon and the stars,
and the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans–
and all that live and move upon them.
He has given us all green things
and everything that blossoms and bears fruit–
and all that we quarrel about
and all that we have misused–
and to save us from our own foolishness,
from all our sins,
He came down to earth and gave us Himself.
~Sigrid Undset,
Nobel prize-winning Norwegian novelist

God is our refuge and strength,an ever-present help in trouble.Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,  though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. ~Psalm 46:1-3   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

571. There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast. ~Charles Dickens

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We look at life from the back side of the tapestry.
And most of the time, what we see are
loose threads, tangled knots and the like.
But occasionally, God’s light shines through, and
we get a glimpse of the larger design with God
weaving together the darks and lights of existence.
~John Piper

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No moon, no stars, no sun, no blue of sky… No bees, no butterflies, no adoring, garden paramours… Only a foggy Sabbath steeped in silent, grey stillness as bit by bit by bit color empties out of the landscape leaving in its wake pallid, watercolored remains to blanket the lawn… Autumn has but a fortnight left before she relinquishes her throne to winter’s chilling reign. So I wonder if she’s weeping, if the falling mists are her crestfallen tears. It would certainly seem so as gloomy and grey as her recent days have been. Her palette, once streaked with chestnut and chocolate, maroon and mahogany, mauve and mulberry, orange and ochre, red and russet, is soon to be washed of all but grey and beige and evergreen. Thankfully, however, there are the brightly colored lights of Christmas to brighten the dying year’s ever-increasing, muted days.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ~James 1:17  ✝

569. Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. ~Helen Keller

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Life is either
a daring adventure
or nothing at all.
~Helen Keller
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Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly
they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,
dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens, becomes for a moment fragmented,
then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine
how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,
this wheel of many parts,
that can rise and spin over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us…
~Excerpt from a poem by Mary Oliver
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As starlings gather in the evenings to roost, often they will participate in what is called a murmuration — a huge flock that shape-shifts in the sky as if it were one swirling liquid mass. Often the behavior is sparked by the presence of a predator like a hawk or peregrine falcon, and the flock’s movement is based on evasive maneuvers. There is safety in numbers, so the individual starlings do not scatter, but rather are able to move as an intelligent cloud, feinting away from a diving raptor, thousands of birds changing direction almost simultaneously.
*I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw. ~Proverbs 24:32   ✝
** Images via Pinterest

566. The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart. ~St. Jerome

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The best and most beautiful things
in the world cannot be seen or even touched –
they must be felt with the heart.
~Helen Keller

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On the edge of dreaming when the brain lets go, when it stops its scheming, our blood runs slow… Then the heart speaks clearly of the things it knows, things it brought so dearly at the evening’s glow… And a misty sunset fills the west with yellow, gold and scarlet red. The bowl of space at dawn sheds light upon our silky bed. For you, I send refreshing rain to wash the past away. A quiet breeze drifts warmly across your tired face. It brings the scents from flowery climbs, and leaves without a trace. With vines and newborn stars in our hair…undressed, bronzed platinum we are as summer in your golden church… Like whispers lost at sea…we soar beyond the sky of fire…in harmony within the clash of elements… Together lost and free to claim our each desire. Like leaves we float to earth, once more…forbidden passion, romantic eyes, and heated lips…two burning amber hearts released and drinking slowly mysterious champagne of heaven’s sweetest rest… ~Oksana Rus

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ~Deuteronomy 6:5   ✝

**Image via Pinterest