We’re back to Melanie‘s solo muggle-some questions à la carte, and these are short and sweet this week. Check them out and join in! Also under “Gratitude” are photos for Cee’s FOTD.
Tag: God
Sky-verse To You
I’m skating it, free-wheeling it
Somersaulted skyward by the infinite jest of it
That I could be winging it, barrel-rolling
Like Icarus to the very summit of it
Unburned by it, cascading liberating fall of it
Caught in it, unbound through it, Your love.
For dVerse's Quadrille #112: The Sky’s the Limit (in 44 words) Click on Mr. Linky for more and join in!
Along with my Green, some Yellow
Jude’s Saturday Symphony #9: Write about something green.
Show us its character, its emotions.
Along with my Green
I would have some Yellow.
While on the former I’m keen
(Growth I’d hardly disavow)
I like it best beside the Yellow
Speaking a joy of Love unseen.
With You by sidewalk and wood
Yellow sparkles like water
In a glass of Green
Let Green be my banner
Of life reborn, alive to You.
Let Yellow be my manner
Of joy bubbling through
To speak of Your great favor
Whatever the day’s hue.
With You by sidewalk and wood
Yellow sparkles like water
In a glass of Green
So Green of the grass
And Yellow of the flower
I celebrate both, for alas,
One without the other
Would be like a glass
Without sparkling water
By sidewalk and by wood.
Joyful Dependance on God
Some of you have noticed the tagline to my site title “This Jolly Beggar”: “In Absolute Joyful, Dependance on the Grace and Love of God.” The story behind that is on my “C. S. Lewis on Jolly Beggars” page.
So when I saw these tiny sparkling blue flowers in an out-of-the-way patch of dirt down an alley, I recognized in them this quality of joyful dependance on God. Nothing dimmed their sparkle. And eyes that were open to their presence were blessed beyond all reason. Why? Because languishing here in this little patch where no one noticed them, these little stalks of blue stars, these jolly beggars boldly testified to God’s faithfulness.
Today I read of another “jolly beggar,” Rika Theron, who lives in South Africa. As the author of the article on Rika writes:
This. This is a life of suffering. And this is a life of breathtaking beauty. . . . .
In a world that worships fame and productivity, indulgences and self-sufficiency, Rika’s life may seem unbearably difficult. She has not enjoyed the fleeting pleasures afforded to most people and has spent her life in relative seclusion, in pain and dependent on others. Yet watching Rika live in joyful dependence on God, touching the seen and unseen world, I realize she’s changing the universe as she fights her daily battles – perhaps having a greater impact on the kingdom of God than celebrities with large ministries. In heaven, the people who have suffered alone, in a small corner of the world, will shine more brightly than we can imagine.
Vaneetha Risner, “A Remarkable Life”
Rika knows that she is seen and known and loved by God. Do you have this same knowledge and joyful dependance on the God who suffered and has offered Himself for you?
Bear pain for one moment at a time; there is patience enough in Jesus for the next moment. You cannot exhaust God; and your work is to be, not in your might or power, but by his Spirit. — F. B. Meyer
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 10: 13
Photo for Cee's Flower of the Day (FOTD) Challenge. Be sure to visit Cee's Photo Challenges for amazing photography and fun photo challenges.
Dance Convergence
Immense and free
The wind beneath me
Jouissance of gravity
A new life convergence
Soaring with the water
An overflowing hope
To carry the air
Unbounded by fear
Released by Your grace
Breathing eternity
Love's radiant beauty
Dancing in me.
Photo by Joel Valve (Unsplash) for Sadje's What Do you See (For the visually challenged reader,the image shows a girl dancing under the jets of water of a fountain, which are meeting above her in an arc.)
Surely Goodness, Surely Mercy
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Psalm 23, A Psalm of David.
Butterfly in Gingko Green
For Cee’s FOTD Challenge, a gingko sapling dreams green butterflies and whispers the secrets of paradise: peace, contentment, joy, while basking in God’s love.
When God Breaks In
There is a time in everyone’s life when God breaks in, when all the artifices of man crumble like so much dust. Culture, race, language, identity, and time itself melts alway before the eternal, incorruptible, all-encompassing presence of God Himself. His timelessness steps into our time. The eternal Word takes on flesh to speak in a human tongue eternal truth. Grace and mercy descends to rescue a cruel and corrupt world. Love looks into our eyes with everlasting tenderness.
In a Dark Hour
3 A.M.
Awakened to an eerie self-examination of the soul
on the steel-cold surface under surgically precise lights
unentombing cancers, contagion-carrying arteries, dismembered
corruption to the dispassionate gaze of an Enemy brooding,
brooding.
3:20 A.M.
Still sweating under the administered fumes seeping
through pores, guilt-driven language of parents driven
from home to carnage of children preying on children, warfare
of wretched depravity in the eyes of a man, a woman seething,
seething.
3:40 A.M.
Cannot speak, cannot hear, cannot see, cannot feel anything
but the weight of irreversible fate, the darts of the Enemy
injections of delirious oblivion only to awaken to endless night
where no refuge lies from grief and fear and the hate pursuing,
pursuing.
4:00 A.M.
Helpless, my tongue dry, the light dims, darkness closes in,
but a voice is heard, a minister to prophesy over the bitter
collocation of bones, unholy, “O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!”-
prophesy!- in the body and the blood a Life that is not mine breathes,
breathes.
DailyPostPrompt: eerie
The Promises, the Giver
If in all the world I could trust just you
To forever keep a promise or two
I’d give my soul to you, my dear,
With many a kiss and nary a fear
Believing your promises were safe and true
And I had nothing to fear from you.
