Tag Archives: Strength

I miss me…

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I miss me. The old me. The contented me. The bright me. The smiling me. The laughing me. The gone me. The me who didn’t see one of her hardest trials coming. It’s not that my life was ever perfect or pain free because it has never really been either of those things. No one’s ever is. But it was a known world, a quiet world, a world that had been accepted, a world from which a measure of wisdom had been garnered. And as long as I’ve lived I should have learned that we live in a constant state of flux in this world and so change is inevitable. There are always new lessons to be learned, new trials and tribulations, new insights to be gained, new purposes to be served. For the Lord has need of us and our gifts. And He knows we need to have our hearts softened again and again so that we continually yearn to hear His voice, read His Word, as well as trust and lean on Him and Him only for all our needs. Though we cannot understand much of the Divine mysteries, Yahweh designed us to seek Him and what more compelling catalysts are there than sleepless nights, relentless pain, and endless discomforts to drive us back under the shelter of His wings and near the sound of his still, small voice. And the undeserved blessing is that when we think we can’t go another step further, He is the strength and impetus that comes to help us keep putting one foot in front of the other. God is after all a good, good Father, and He doesn’t want to lose any of us even those of us who were once lost. Jesus always wants to bring us back into His keeping where hope lives, love lives, healing lives, and His grace upon grace sustains and saves us. So though these things above are gone for now, I’m living by faith that they will return even though I have one more week of radiation, which has been one of the hardest things to endure mentally, emotionally, and physically, to come my way, and there is yet another worrisome, even potentially life threatening, bridge to cross next month.

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  ✝

**Photo and text by Natalie

***For those new to my blog, the radiation treatments have exacerbated my migraine headaches and restless leg symptoms that had previously been relatively under control with my medications. Since the radiation treatments have ramped them up, sleep has been very elusive and the pain from one or both has pushed into the range of nearly unbearable and I’ve maxed out on my meds.

1441. Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

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For a seed to achieve
its greatest expression,
it must come completely undone.
The shell cracks,
its insides come out,
and everything changes.
~Cynthia Occelli

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Part of the genius of God’s grand design is that we awaken every day to a fresh flowing of His energy and vitality. These things have been stored in the seeds of our being, seeds that possess the same strength as that of the rising sun, earth’s swelling seas, and its fertile plains. An excellent time to look for the shining of Yahweh’s everlasting light in the sanctuary of the soul is in the first waking moments of each new day. These are moments that are fresh and ripe and full of promise, and regardless of one’s age there’s simply never a moment when in and of ourselves that there aren’t unopened gifts(seeds) of promise. The Almighty’s sacred hopes remain within us forever, and heaven’s creativity on earth can be born of them at any time. Even if the human soul has grown hard, the catalyst of prayer, as the agonies of life in the world are lifted up, is enough to bring about miraculous new life and hope. Just take a look at seeds which lie dormant in the earth season after season after season; they too can be brought to life with a single spark of the Divine’s touch.

For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. ~Isaiah 61:11 ✝

**Image of flax seed which is used to make linen found on Pixabay

1411. Then summer fades and passes and October comes. ~Thomas Wolfe

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Spring flowers are long since gone.
Summer’s bloom hangs limp on every terrace.
The gardener’s feet drag a bit on the dusty path
and the hinge in his back is full of creaks.
~Louise Seymour Jones

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Well October did indeed come and the summer heat dropped about 10 degrees ONLY which does NOT indicate fading as much as frying because the “heat beast” is still breathing his nasty, fiery breath upon us. And most of summer’s bloom is more crunchy than it is limp. So where oh where is my beloved Autumn and it’s divine cooler temps??? Is some grumpy old troll-like curmudgeon holding it back??? We may get a taste of fall tomorrow and the next day but then after those two days we’re going right back up into the high 80’s and low 90’s AGAIN!!! Daily I read blogs about autumn’s splendor and first frosts and see lovely photos of it all. I have waited patiently, well maybe not so patiently since patience is NOT my strong suit, to wake up and find that the colorful leaves and a first frost have at long last arrived here. But alas and alack, zilch, nada, nuttin’ even remotely resembling autumn has been able to penetrate the armor of the Texas “heat monster.” And I know this about Texas because I have lived here over 50 years now. But being the ever-hopeful woman that I am, I keep thinking that just once maybe the “monster” will “shuffle off to Buffalo” when it is supposed too!!! But it won’t and so this is the time of year when I have to make lists reminding me that there is goodness in each and every day even if it’s not “packaged” the way I expect or want it to be. So please allow me to express my envy of those areas where autumn has come as well as vocalize my loud, obnoxious, and whiny ARGHHHHHHHHHH about summer’s lingering and stifling continuance one last time!!!

For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. ~Psalm 32:4 ✝

**Photos taken in her yard by Natalie

1314. Learn to use the lightening (in the storms of life) as fiery fuel to further propel you to all that encourages your own aliveness. ~Victoria Erickson

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Use your internal strength and willpower
to rise above the thoughts pulling you down
and watch your world rise alongside you…
~Victoria Erickson

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I crave the ones who’ve seen confusion and known struggle; who have pulled themselves up from the shackles of heartache and strife, disappointment and darkness, exhaustion and drain, and have risen with a heart as open and unwaveringly wide as the ocean itself. Give me those people. The brave, the vulnerable, the wise, the ones who care for a world, and how to better it along with themselves. To know their ability in making waves, in shifting patterns with tides and in creating change. Let us become that open ocean. And make it rise. ~Victoria Erickson

Tonight, you may be empty, silent, sorrowful or alone,
but you have the moon and you have your breath,
and in inhaling the wonder of those alone, may you
be wrapped in the soft shawl of gentle relief that this
moment is beautiful and more than worthy…
~Victoria Erickson

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. ~Ecclesiastes 1:18  ✝

**Image found on Pinterest

1293. We strain to renew our capacity to wonder, to shock ourselves into astonishment once again. ~Shana Alexander

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Human life is as evanescent as the
morning dew or a flash of lightning.
~Samuel Butler

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The disciples are drawn to the high altars
with magnetic certainty, knowing that a
great Presence hovers over the ranges …
in the primal patterns of nature,
a magical union with beauty.
~Ansel Adams

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Beauty is truth’s smile when she
beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.
~Rabindranath Tagore

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The beauty of the trees,
the softness of the air,
the fragrance of the grass,
speaks to me.
The summit of the mountain,
the thunder of the sky,
speaks to me.
The faintness of the stars,
the trail of the sun,
the strength of fire,
and the life that never goes away,
they speak to me.
And my heart soars.
~Chief Dan George

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He(God) performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. ~Job 5:9 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

1253. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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She,
In the dark,
Found light
Brighter than many ever see.
She,
Within herself,
Found loveliness,
Through the soul’s own mastery.
And now the world receives
From her dower:
The message of the strength
Of inner power.
~Helen Keller, a poem
by Langston Hughes

My son, pay attention to what I (God) say; turn your ear to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body. ~Proverbs 4:20-22  ✝

**Helen Keller was born with the ability to see and hear. At 19 months of age, she contracted an illness described by doctors as “an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain,” which might have been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness left her both deaf and blind.

1250. A vignette-a small illustration or photograph that fades into its background without a definite border. ~New Oxford American Dictionary

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For summer there, bear in mind, is a
loitering gossip, that only begins to talk
of leaving when September rises to go.
~George Washington Cable

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Ah summer, barbarous in the sun’s rays,
the sands in your hourglass remain but few
and yet your closing hours have not cooled.
Days now shorter still bring too large a measure
of treacherous heat amid high levels of humidity.
What once were colorful, flowery arrays fade
more and more into backgrounds blurred by eyes
weary of squinting from the blinding rays of sunlight.
There is only a mere tidbit of vignettes of what
once was the garden’s grandeur on an unequaled scale.
So, Rilke, I pray your prayer, and may the Lord
hear my pleas for summer’s heat to come to an end.
~Natalie Scarberry

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Lord, it is time.
The summer was very big.
Lay thy shadow on the sundials, and
on the meadows let the winds go loose.
Command the last fruits that they shall be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them on to fulfillment and drive
the last sweetness into the heavenly wine.
~Rainer Maria Rilke

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. ~Isaiah 40:29  ✝

**All photos taken by me in yard; collages by me; and I deliberately blurred the edges of them. 

1242. I believe in Christ like I believe in the sun-not because I can see it, but by it I can see everything else. ~C.S. Lewis

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The following is a poem of belief by a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi Concentration Camp. It was written during WW2, on the wall of a cellar, by a Jew in the Cologne concentration camp.

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I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love,
even when there’s no one there.
And I believe in God,
even when he is silent.
I believe through any trial,
there is always a way
But sometimes in this suffering
and hopeless despair
My heart cries for shelter,
to know someone’s there
But a voice rises within me,saying hold on
my child, I’ll give you strength,
I’ll give you hope. Just stay a little while.
I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love
even when there’s no one there
But I believe in God
even when he is silent
I believe through any trial
there is always a way.
May there someday be sunshine
May there someday be happiness
May there someday be love
May there someday be peace…
~Unknown

He(Jesus) came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through Him. ~John 1:7 ✝

1229. The glory in the garden lies in more than meets the eye. ~Rudyard Kipling

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Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be…
~William Wordsworth

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“Glory days, they’ll pass you by in the wink of a young girl’s eye” goes a line in a song by Bruce Springsteen. And so it is with the morning glory. She comes and spends her brief hour upon life’s stage but that wink of her daily glory lasts a lifetime, at least for me. I adore each and every one that blooms until the vines die with the first freeze. And if there is a blessing in our hot summers here in Texas, it is in that we enjoy a long growing season and our first average freeze date is not until November 15th.

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About this time each year my morning glory vines hit their stride and from here on out until our first freeze, glory will indeed abound in my yard. Each one though it lives but that one day looks like a chalice which holds morning’s light and therefore God’s continuing glory on earth. As such she feeds body and soul with her beauty and she honors her Maker with her glory. So yes, Mr. Wordsworth we shall grieve not the “splendor in the grass or the glory in the flower,” but ever find strength in the “primal sympathy which having been must ever be…”

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morning glory sings in
the highest pitch
that fills
all the
empty spaces
unto the eyes of
the Lord
~Gregory Golden

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But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. ~Psalm 3:3  ✝

**All morning glory images taken in my yard but not all today

1105. Let the resurrection joy lift us from loneliness and weakness and despair to strength and beauty and happiness.  ~Floyd W. Tomkins

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Once more to new creation
Awake,
 and death gainsay,
For death is swallowed up of life,
And Christ is risen today!
~George Newell Lovejoy

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And he departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him.  For He departed, and behold, He is here. ~St Augustine

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die… ~John 11:25  ✝

**Image via Pinterest