Good morning, dear friends and Prayer Partners! This is the day that the Lord has made and we will rejoice and be glad in it! After a deluge from a storm last night, I thought we might have sunshine today, but not yet. However, I like the cooler temps that come with overcast skies. I just saw a butterfly flit past my window, and then a bird zipped by, so nothing stops the creatures that God created for our pleasure. Even the squirrels that are so silly sometimes, chasing each other around and around the oak trees.
I went to the Park yesterday and watched an anhinga drag himself over the weir drying his wings. They look very graceful and sleek swimming underwater, but on land...not so much. I also watched a young woman come running on the other side of the canal, where it is not open to the public, but somehow, she got over there and then kept running down to the boardwalk. She looked like a runner, very swift and steady in her gait. I saw another runner the other day, who was definitely pushing it and looked exhausted, but she was determined.
There is a purple flowering tree down at the end of my block and I don't know the name of it, but it is beautiful, and I admire it each time I drive by. God is good!
From Quiet Moments with God:
You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. the streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain. For so you have ordained it. Psalm 65:9
One of America's most popular contemporary painters, Andrew Wyeth, portrays life in rural Penn. and Maine so meticulously and naturally that it sometimes appears surreal. A story told by his brother Nat gives a great deal of insight into the source of Wyeth's intensity.
Andy did a picture of Lafayette's quarters near Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, with a sycamore tree behind the building. When I first saw the painting, he wasn't finished with it. He showed me a lot of drawings of the trunk and the sycamore's gnarled roots, and I said, "Where's all that in the picture?"
"It's not in ther picture, Nat," he said. "For me to get what I want in the part of the tree that's showing, I've got to know thoroughly how it is anchored in back of the house."
The act of thinking things through is important to eveery task in our lives. For example, we cannot overlook the importance of good preparation when we are planning our garden, or we risk damaging the plants with poor soil or by setting them too close together to grow freely.
Wall Street legend, Barnard Baruch emphasized this need, stating, "Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought."
It is a joy to commune with God and ask His advice as we plan our daily activities. When you have an important task to think through, take time to ask, "Lord, what is your will?" He will be glad to help.
Four steps to achievement"
Plan purposefully. prepare prayerfully,
proceed positively,
Pursue persistently.
William Arthur Ward
I always give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers with thanksgiving, joy and love!
Love and hugs,
Amaryllis
