KODAK Digital Still CameraKODAK Digital Still CameraKODAK Digital Still Camera
Our greenway system is so beautiful that in spots it is almost like being in the middle of the Smokey Mountain National Park and Gatlinburg, but you’re still in the middle of a busy and growing city. Enjoy your day!
Dear Lord, I pray these people may come to know your overwhelming and unconditional love for them not just intellectually, in their minds, but in their guts, their hearts, may they feel it. That they will let you become intimate with them, and they can know that you created the earth with such beauty for them to enjoy and take pleasure in out of your great love for them. Amen
Will You?
The pain increases
Oh what if it never ceases?
What will I do then
What can bring it to an end?
Where is that God
That said he wants to heal
Now as from this incessant pain
I kneel
Where is my helper now?
Slowly a light starts within
My chest
A knowledge evolves
As I try to resolve this test
Will you still love me?
What kind of question is that?
I turn from it and pray
Again inside my head
Those words have another say
Will you still love me?
If your circumstances
I do not change today
Do not give you
Exactly your way
Will you still love me?
I seek only those worthy
Of my higher calling
For an enemy’s lies
Do not be falling
Following me will not
Always be easy
Before your eyes
I will not always be pleasing
Your world now is lost
To save it I paid a terrible cost
Now will you be willing
To suffer a loss
To follow me?
FREE read the first two chapters of my book, WHEN HEAVEN SIGHS, here at Book
I got to see a Great Blue Heron up close this morning on the greenway while it was hunting for food. They eat fish and small frogs. Usually, they stand frozen in one spot, and you don’t get to see them move around. Today, he was all over the creek looking for food. Enjoy and may God bless your day!
KODAK Digital Still CameraKODAK Digital Still CameraKODAK Digital Still Camera
KODAK Digital Still Camera
KODAK Digital Still Camera
KODAK Digital Still Camera
Today was Turtle Day! on the greenway where I ride my bike. Normally, you only see the turtles in the water or on rocks sunning at the water’s edge. But today, they were right at the greenway. I caught a tiny, tiny, baby one in the middle of the trail, a large grandfather glaring at me from inside his shell and a medium sized one right at the edge in the grass. I guess they just felt like socializing with us intruders into their territory. I did not dare to pick one up because here in Tennessee we have a lot of snapping turtles so you don’t want a finger close to their mouths.
Just threw in a couple of pictures of some red clover that has come into full bloom just now. Have a great day and Praise God for the beauty and variety of His earth!
Pick Up Your. . .
As children we get told
Pick up your things, your mess
Clean behind yourself
Oh, how our parents we can test
As older we grow
But as we become adults
By someone much wiser than I
From an ancient book of old
We are each & every told
To pick up our cross and Follow Him
Notice. . .
He did not say
Pick up your money
Or your pleasure
Or your lusts for
Material possessions
He said
Pick up your troubles,
Pain, suffering
And follow me anyway
Try each & every day
Within His footsteps to stay
Christ did not live a life
Of luxury
Pleasure
While here not
even particularly loved
Except from the Holy Father above
Denied Himself
Became obedient
Even when He was sent
To that tortuous cross!
Counted it all as nothing, all a loss
For us paid a most excruciating cost!
Cannot we do the same
To follow His Glorious name?
To find your life you must lose it
And if you are not willing. . . ?
Not willing to sacrifice for Him
Then worthy of Him are we not
His words, not mine!
Matthew 10:37–39 Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
Christ does not mean not to love your family or neighbors, only to put Him first! Praise God for his love, mercy, grace and forgiveness!
The First Calm
It happened under the skies
Of the very first dawn
Rays of light breaking
Placid horizon in yellows,
Pinks and reds
It was the first Calm
A new world, pleasant
To the eyes and soul
Broken out of deep, dark
Nothingness
By ancient words and voices told
In a Holy Book
Life exploded
Upon a spinning globe
Of dirt, air & water
Animals, man & plants
To each by a loving hand
Did the Creator grant
Relationship
With Himself,
The Ones who stirred
The darkness
Into life
Nothingness
Into something
Desired to associate
Fellowship
With our forms of dust
Only asking for a return
Of love, respect
& our trust
This was the first Calm
This perfected peace
Between all forms of life
And the Creators
Between all of Their creation
& Themselves
There was not a hint, scent
Of strife
Until man,
Supposedly the highest,
Decided to rebel
And follow the wrong voice
Made the ultimate mistake
Available, the worst choice
And everything fell
Plants, animals, earth
Spun out of the original plan
Subject to terrors
Never meant or intended
By our Creator’s gentlest
Of hands
And so we lost
All of us
Paid a dearest cost
To suffer in pain,
Showed disdain for the Ones
Who made us
And so in tears we lived
And lost
The First Calm
SoulSails 