1336. Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. ~Charles Dickens

January 13, 2017 by nataliescarberry

Although time seems to fly, it never travels faster than one day at a time. Each day is a new opportunity to live your life to the fullest. In each waking day, you will find scores of blessings and opportunities for positive change. Do not let your TODAY be stolen by the unchangeable past or the indefinite future! Today is a new day! ~Steve Maraboli

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Blessing
May you wake with a sense of play,
An exultation of the possible.
May you rest without guilt,
Satisfied at the end of a day well done.
May all the rough edges be smoothed,
If to smooth is to heal,
And the edges be left rough,
When the unpolished is more true
And infinitely more interesting.
May you wear your years like a well-tailored coat
Or a brave sassy scarf.
May every year yet to come:
Be one more bright button
Sewn on a hat you wear at a tilt.
May the friendships you’ve sown
Grown tall as summer corn.
And the things you’ve left behind,
Rest quietly in the unchangeable past.
May you embrace this day,
Not just as any old day,
But as this day.
Your day.
Held in trust
By you,
In a singular place,
Called now.

BY CARRIE NEWCOMER

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. ~Ephesians 1:3 ✝

**All images via Pinterest; collage by Natalie; border and text added on PicFont

1185. We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder

June 26, 2016 by nataliescarberry

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Today is not just another day, it is the one day that is given to you today. It is a gift, the only gift of a day that you have right now. And so the only appropriate response is gratefulness. If you do nothing else but to cultivate that response, to the great gift that this unique day is, and if you learn to respond as if it were the first day of your life and the very last day, then you will have spent this day very well.

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Begin by opening your eyes and be surprised that you have eyes you can open, the incredible array of colors that is constantly offered to us for pure enjoyment. Look at the sky; we so rarely look at the sky, so rarely note how different it is from moment to moment with clouds coming and going. We just think of the weather, but we don’t think of all the different nuances of weather. We just think of good weather and bad weather. This day, right now, this unique weather, maybe a kind that may never come in that form again. The formation of clouds in the sky may never be the same than it is right now, open your eyes and look at that.

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Look at the faces of people that you meet. Each one has an incredible story behind their face, a story that you could never fully fathom not only their own story but the story of their ancestors. We all go back so far. And in this present moment, this day, all the people you meet, all that life from generations and so many all over the world, flows together and meets you here like life giving water if you only open your heart and drink. Open your heart to the incredible gifts that civilization gives to you. You flip a switch and there is electric light. You turn a faucet and there is warm water and cold water and drinkable water. It is a gift that millions and millions of people will never experience. ~Br. David Steindl-Rast, Benedictine Monk

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Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; His love endures forever. 1 Chronicles 16:34 ✝

**Images via Pinterest except for middle one that I took at the bottom; collages by Natalie

878. TODAY!

September 21, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Relax. Refresh. Renew.

Play. Sing. Laugh.

Enjoy. Forgive. Dance.

Love. Hug. Kiss.

Dream. Explore. Create.

Listen. Trust. Learn.

Share. Hope. Dare.

~Steve Maraboli

Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come. ~Henri Nouwen

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. ~2 Corinthians 9:6 ✝

**All images via Pinterest

752. Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream. ~Kahlil Gibran

June 1, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Our lives are structured
by our memories of events.
~Joshua Foer

Ever so long ago during the summer before my senior year in high school, I decided I wanted to take French instead of a fourth year of Latin, and from the very first day in that class I fell in love with the French language, France in general, and Paris in particular. So after graduation I headed off to college and chose French as my major with the dream of being a translator at the UN one day or better still of going to live and work in Paris. However, my father’s unexpected and premature death at the end of my Freshman year at TCU changed my life in so many ways. I was heartbroken beyond all reason; I just wanted to quit school and get a job. But the combined voices of friends and my mom prevailed, and I went back to school in the fall. My mom did press me to go ahead and get a teaching certificate no matter what else I might decide to do when I graduated.

I will perpetuate your memory through all generations; therefore the nations will praise you for ever and ever. ~Psalm 45:17 ✝

**Images via Pinterest and the Internet

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

February 17, 2015 by nataliescarberry

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

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.

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 ✝

266. When hope is hungry, everything feeds it. ~Mignon McLaughlin

February 1, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Though you lose all hope,
there is still hope,
and it loves to surprise.
~Robert Brault

Goodbye January and hello February! Whew, January is a long month, isn’t it?! So much so that it makes my hope very hungry indeed. Dada, dada da da da! I said hello, February…well hello February…It’s so nice you’ve finally come around again. You’re lookin’ swell, February…And time will tell February…That spring’s a comin’ February… Okay, to appreciate my attempt here at “cleverosity” with the previous lines, you have to try to remember a song from a musical by the same name called HELLO DOLLY. Okay, so maybe it was a lame attempt, but today is just that kind of day, one that puts a song in my heart. Why? Why you ask? Well…

About the time the barrenness of winter starts putting asunder all hope of anything different, February saves the day by bringing forth visible signs of the new spring. And so it did this year on its very first day. After I’d watered and waited and watched the bulbs I’d started weeks ago in the greenhouse, I was rewarded today with several emerging buds. The result: squeals of joy peeled forth inside its walls along with hallelujahs and praise for such glorious surprises amid winter’s gloomy, brown and beige drabness. But they’re just flowers some might say, but pshaw! They are pieces in the puzzle of Creation itself, blessed and holy and full of purpose. They’ve been touched by the very hand of God and then ordained as part of the faithful and reoccurring provision not only for man’s needs but for his pleasure as well. And if flowers are inconsequential why are so many poems and pieces of literature devoted to them, and why are they considered by many as desirable gifts, and why are their scents revered for use in perfumes, and why have they been worth at times more than gold?

“Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and make use of the creation to the full as in youth. Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no flower of spring pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither…” ~Wisdom 2:6-8 ✝

265. Of the six million species on the planet, only man makes language. Words. What’s more — in evidence of the Divine — we string symbols together and then write them down, where they take on a life of their own and breathe outside of us. ~Charles Martin

January 31, 2014 by nataliescarberry

I write because there is nothing larger in life than
To be read, maybe even reread by another–
To be examined and then verified of being
Understood, or trusted like a saint–
I don’t imagine being immortalized
Or stacked in a library for hands with a million
Oppositions to wander through for
Poetic justice either–

Perhaps purpose is purchased or earned or even
Inherited by some mystic right–
But it is my reasoning I hearken to,
All that I am resonates with inscribing, putting down
My Self on the papyrus of today,
Like a manuscript never quite decrypt but
Interesting to the soul’s eye
For perpetual encounter.
~Deborah Jeanne Avila

All the kings of the earth shall praise you, O Lord for they have heard the words of your mouth. Psalm 138:4 ✝

247. The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. ~Rumi

January 14, 2014 by nataliescarberry

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 all 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

Welcome the new day; it is a new creation. Greet it with gratitude. It is a nonrepeatable gift; it is a promise of resurrection. Miss not the day’s beauty. Miss not the joy. Miss not the wonder. Miss not chances to make the world a better place. Miss not opportunities to praise God!

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ~Lamentations 3:22-23 ✝

178. All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today and yesterday. ~Chinese Proverb

November 2, 2013 by nataliescarberry

In the garden the door is always open into the holy –
growth, birth, death.
Every flower holds the whole mystery in its short cycle,
and in the garden we are never far away from death,
fertilizing, good, creative death.
~May Sarton

Every year the unseen becomes visible as new life explodes from quiet, dark, sustaining wombs. Beneath the soil roots grow and above the surface tiny leaves yield proof of life. Enlivening rains come, and the leaves grow. Daylight hours lengthen, and they grow more. Amid the leaves emerge buds, and they grow. Buds burst into flowers, the flowers fade, and their petals fall. Fruits, seed heads, or pods appear, and they ripen. Fruits are harvested, seeds are spilled onto the soil, and buds are set inside woody canes or branches. Then comes the time of rest, the discontinuance of the same, the different new genesis. The beginnings, the middles, the ends–never an ending without a beginning–never a beginning without an ending, so goes the cyclic constancy of a garden.

The land produced vegetation; plants bearing seed according to its kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ~Genesis 1:12 ✝

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Today