1104. All you ever longed for is before you in this moment if you dare draw in a breath and a whisper “Yes.” ~Danna Faulds

March 26, 2016 by nataliescarberry

Despite doubt or hopeless turns of mind, you are not broken.
Spirit surrounds, embraces, fills you from the inside out.
Release everything that isn’t your true nature.
What’s left, the fullness, light and shadow,
claim all that as your birthright.
~Danna Faulds

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A door opens. Maybe I’ve been standing here shuffling my weight from foot to foot for decades, or maybe I only knocked once. In truth, it doesn’t matter. A door opens and I walk through without a backward glance. This is it, then, one moment of truth in a lifetime of truth; a choice made, a path taken, the gravitational pull of Spirit too compelling to ignore any longer. I am received by something far too vast to see. It has roots in antiquity but speaks clearly in the present tense. “Be,” the vastness says. “Be without adverbs, descriptors, or qualities. Be so alive that awareness bares itself uncloaked and unadorned. Then go forth to give what you alone can give, awake to love and suffering, unburdened by the weight of expectations. Go forth to see and be seen, blossoming, always blossoming into your magnificence. ~Danna Faulds

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. ~Job 33:4 ✝

**Image found on the Internet

1095. Every moment of light and dark is a miracle. ~Walt Whitman

March 17, 2016 by nataliescarberry

In order for the light to shine so brightly,
the darkness must be present.
~Francis Bacon

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Three days from now, we’ll officially leave winter, the season of darkness and death, and enter spring, the season of light and rebirth. So I decided to share some thoughts about light and darkness, and since today is St. Patrick’s day and John O’Donohue was an Irish poet, I chose the following lines because some of what O’Donohue describes herein resembles as well what happens to the earth at times.

Light cannot see inside things.
That is what the dark is for:
Minding the interior,
Nurturing the draw of growth
Through places where death
In its own way turns into life.
In the glare of neon times,
Let our eyes not be worn
By surfaces that shine
With hunger made attractive.
That our thoughts may be true light,
Finding their way into words
Which have the weight of shadow
To hold the layers of truth.
That we never place our trust
In minds claimed by empty light,
Where one-sided certainties
Are driven by false desire.
When we look into the heart,
May our eyes have the kindness
And reverence of candlelight.
That the searching of our minds
Be equal to the oblique
Crevices and corners where
The mystery continues to dwell,
Glimmering in fugitive light.
When we are confined inside
The dark house of suffering
That moonlight might find a window.
When we become false and lost
That the severe noon-light
Would cast our shadow clear.
When we love, that dawn-light
Would lighten our feet
Upon the waters.
As we grow old, that twilight
Would illuminate treasure
In the fields of memory.
And when we come to search for God,
Let us first be robed in night,
Put on the mind of morning
To feel the rush of light
Spread slowly inside
The color and stillness
Of a found world.
~John O’Donohue

He (God) reveals the deep things of darkness and disorder, where even light is like darkness. ~Job 12:22 ✝

**Image found on Pinterest

The Identity Crisis…

February 23, 2016 by nataliescarberry

In a way this is a reblog of my granddaugter’s post today. It was another great one, and I decided to share it with my followers, but rather that use the graphic she did, I wanted to include pictures of her and her family. Here’s the link to her blog, Living for Christ and Adventure at: https://alwayslivingforhim.wordpress.com/2016/02/23/the-identity-crisis/#respond

Screen Shot 2016-02-23 at 9.54.38 PM.png And here’s the text of her post today:

Hi, my name is Annie. I am a freshman at the University of Oklahoma. I am an International Business and Marketing double major with a Spanish minor. I am an active member of Sigma Phi Lambda, a Christian, non-panhellenic sorority. I am involved in Cru and go to church every Sunday. I am dating a wonderful guy. Despite being a child of divorce, I grew up in a very supportive and loving family. I love writing, hammocking, drinking coffee, underground bands, painting, and photography. So I guess you could say that I am typical hipster Christian girl. But that isn’t my identity. My identity is found only in Christ, and so is yours.

Growing up in America, I think it becomes very easy to always be searching for “yourself.” We have all probably heard the saying in movies or maybe in real life, “I think I just need to take some time ‘to find myself.’” What does that even mean?? Who you are is not going to be found in something or someone in this world.

I am a daughter of the Most High. You are a child of the Most High. Your identity should be found in Christ alone. I can not stress this enough. Whenever you try to find it in any other thing, you will inevitably always feel a little confused about who you really are.

Sure you may be thinking “yeah I know this already.” I’ve grown up in the church being told this which is so cool, and I’m glad you know. BUT are you really grasping what this truth means? I think that if as Christians, we really understood our identities in being children of God, the world would look very different. Understanding and living out the truth, that the Creator of the universe looks at us and calls us His, is crazy, y’all!!

When you focus on your true identity, you will experience His joy. His desires can truly become your desires. You will not be able to be quiet about His grace that He extends to you by calling you His perfect daughter/son. Truly understanding our identity is a game changer. It makes all of the turns and twists of this life not seem so scary because we know that it doesn’t change who we are at our core.

895. Every moment of light and dark is a miracle. ~Walt Whitman

October 7, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Nature is a sacred text
Pages with the deepest truths
Beyond all outward forms
Lies the secret place of wisdom

Valuable things are buried deep
The ocean’s pearls and mountain’s gems
If you wish for worthy objects
You must brave the depths of darkness

Here is where the lesson lies
It’s the same with you and I
We must feel the hurt and pain
Campaign in the aching grief

Beyond all the crippling fear
Beyond all the violent tears
Unveiled is the greatest treasure
Nothing but your holy heart

Here you’ll find paradise
Gardens growing love and life
A peace so deep it can’t be moved
Flowing springs of beauty’s truth
~Irfaan Ihsan Jaffer

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” ~Matthew 5:14-16 ✝

832. Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye. ~Austin O’Malley

August 5, 2015 by nataliescarberry

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life,
for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.
~Bertrand Russell

Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is the adequate perception of the world.
~Hans Margolius

We hunger for quiet times;
we find in them a womb to renew our strength.
~Virginia Ann Froehle

…have a mind so quiet, that you can hear doves whispering
as they rest their wings in the rafters of your silent sanctuary.
~Kate Mullane Robertson

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony,
and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.
~William Wordsworth

But I’ll tell you what hermits realize.
If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet,
you’ll understand that you’re connected with everything.
~Alan Watts

And now in the serenity and quiet of this lovely place,
touch the depths of truth, feel the hem of heaven.
~Adlai E. Stevenson

Noise, the relentless distraction of noise, surrounds us day after day after day. And it steals from us that which is not its to take. So seek a “silent sanctuary” in which you can “feel the hem of heaven” and renew your strength in that quiet “womb.”

Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. ~1 Peter 3:4 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

642. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

February 12, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The hours that I spend with you I look upon
as a sort of perfumed garden, a dim twilight,
and a fountain singing it to you.
You and you alone make  me feel that I am alive.
Other men it is said have seen angels,
But I have seen thee and  thou art enough.
~George Moore

You ask how much I need you
Must I explain?
I need you, oh, my darling
Like roses need rain.

You ask how long, I’ll love you .
I’ll tell you true
Until the twelfth of never
I’ll still be loving you.

Hold me close ;
Never let me go.
Hold me close;
Melt my heart like April snow.

I’ll love you ’til the blue bells forget to bloom ,
I’ll love you ’til the clover has lost its perfume,
I’ll love you ’til the poets run out of rhyme,

Until the twelfth of never
And that’s a long, long time,
Until the twelfth of never
And that’s a long, long time .
~Excerpts from the song, The Twelfth of Never, recorded
by Johnny Mathis and written
by Jerry Livingston and Paul Francis Webster

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spwo7NyCijY

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ~1 Corinthians 13:6-7 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

612. We live at the edge of the miraculous. ~Henry Miller, American writer

January 14, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy;
I drop my fruits like a ripe tree.
~Henry Miller

Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That’s why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there. ~Henry Miller

This passage by Miller is one I make myself go find and read often because it encourages me to keep growing and learning and improving the skills I’ve been blessed with. Brain research has shown that there are no less than seven different kinds of intelligence and that each person is a genius in at least one of those areas. That’s why when I hear about or read about or know someone who thinks they are not smart enough or creative enough, I feel compelled to take exception. I believe that we, each and everyone of us, live not only “at the edge of the miraculous” as Miller contends but in the midst of it as well. Yahweh, Genius and Creator of all that is, creates all of us in His image, and our inherent gifts and talents are there for a reason. What’s more we have a holy anointing on our lives to develop and use them.

For you were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of the light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. ~Ephesians 5:8-10 ✝

** Image of ripe figs via Pinterest

514. Over everything connected with autumn there lingers some golden spell–some unseen influence that penetrates the soul with its mysterious power. ~Northern Advocate

October 11, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Is not this a true autumn day?
Just the still melancholy that I love–
that makes life and nature harmonize.
~George Eliot

Autumn Rose

Beaming bright across the galaxies,
Your petals extend through heaven’s gate.
You waited until now to reveal yourself;
For the world it was worth the wait.

Autumn is your awakening,
While the world prepares for winter’s sleep.
Summer has quickly slipped away,
While your colors of coral and pink run deep.

  Some think age is upon you,
But truth is you are now fulfilled.
You blossomed into life in maturity,
Before the north wind’s chill.

  Soon golden fields will be covered,
In a virgin blanket of snow.
The streams will freeze then re-awaken,
For another, beautiful autumn rose.

~Edited poem by Mark Anderson

Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name. ~Psalm 103:1 ✝

491. Every vine climbing and blossoming tells of love and joy. ~Robert G. Ingersoll

September 18, 2014 by nataliescarberry

That is faith, cleaving to Christ,
twining around Him
with all the tendrils of our heart,
as the vine does round its support.
~Alexander Maclaren

Like all else in Creation, vines remind me of the nearness of God perhaps because they reflect the way He wraps His arms around His children and keeps them close to Himself. In that way we go together like a hat and glove as they say for we are to the Lord as the branch is to the vine, as sheep are to the shepherd, as the flower is to the stem, as the bride is to her groom, as the bird is to air, as the fish is to water, as the star is to the sky, as the sun is to the moon, as the plant is to the seed, as the grass is to the dew, and as the babe is to its mother. Simply put, we are inextricably linked to Yahweh, the Maker of heaven and earth, and it is from our loving Source that we gather strength and energy. His supporting and sustaining provisions draw us into His holy web of life and subsequently move us closer and closer to the Light. In the Gospel of John are the “I am” sayings of Jesus which give us wonderful descriptions of the way Christ connects with us:

“I am the bread of life.”
“I am the light of the world.”
“I am the gate for the sheep.”
“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.”
“I am the resurrection, and the life.”
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
“I am the true vine.”

Return to us, O God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see! Watch over this vine, the root your right hand has planted, the son you have raised up for yourself. ~Psalm 80:14-15 ✝

**Three images above Scripture via Pinterest

479. It is only when we silence the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts. ~K. T. Jong

September 6, 2014 by nataliescarberry

In the attitude of silence
the soul finds the path in a clearer light,
and what is elusive and deceptive
resolves itself into crystal clearness.
Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.
~Mahatma Gandhi

When I spied it, this Canna’s last bloom of summer was standing supremely beautiful in its silence and solitude. It was early in the day, no one else was around, and it was deliciously quiet in the garden. But in the silence I heard whispers, murmurings of the undeniable truth that all is the valued work of the Divine’s intelligent design and not the random scattering of atoms. On a late summer’s day, this was more than enough for me to be grateful and celebrate the life the Lord had granted me and the flower.

I arise today
In the name of Silence
Womb of the Word,
In the name of Stillness
Home of Belonging,
In the name of the Solitude
Of the Soul and the Earth.
~John O’Donohue

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” ~Psalm 46:10 ✝

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Truth