Today, Saturday, has been a good day of unwinding with a few family and a few friends -- pure inspiration. We were up before dawn and driving over the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia into Highland County for the Annual Maple Festival.
As I reflect on the day that's nearly past, this song by the late and great voice of Eva Cassidy surely speaks more beautifully to me than anything I can think of writing myself. I think the song at the link below will touch your heart. Listen to this classic, live recording from the 1990s.... all the way to the end.
Click here: Eva Cassidy
Over The Rainbow - LIVE - YouTube
Grateful
P.S. Thanks Pastor Joseph for telling me about this great voice from the past.
Showing posts with label beautiful. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beautiful. Show all posts
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Volume 2: "Christmases Past"
In Volume 1, of this spontaneous series: "What I Miss Most About Christmases Past", I talked about how I miss cutting down a live Christmas tree each year at the mountainside Evergreen Tree Farm with our little children. While that was a while back, I continue Volume 2 with a much older memory.
I really miss the "holy days" at my Granny and Grandaddy's house on the west end of the little East Coast island I was raised on.
I especially miss my Granny and Granddaddy and my Granny's kitchen.
While Granny's major expertise was cooking seafood, she was also quite the holiday cake baker, too. And her specialty cake was called a jelly cake. It was a yellow layer cake with a secret-recipe frosting made of a glistening red jelly plentifully applied between each layer and totally adorning the outside. I have never ever seen a more beautiful dessert and I have never ever tasted a more delicious sweet holiday treat.
In fact, when I was a young boy, my Granny's sister, my Aunt Dicie, taught me the word "delicious" in Granny's kitchen as I was eye-balling one of Granny's impossible-to-ignore-shiny-red, jelly cakes.
I think my Aunt Edith, Granny's only daughter, might still probably have the secret jelly cake recipe? I must find out! My memory demands to know!
Who knows, maybe my wife will even be able to make these irresistibly beautiful and delicious cakes in our Christmases future?
I know I don't need the calories, but honestly I'd just love to sit and stare once again at one of my Granny's red jelly cakes. The inspiring images from Christmases past are forever saved in my mind's eye.
Yes, I miss so much about Christmases Past, however please know that I am (on this very Thanksgiving Day 2013) totally appreciative that the memories are still being made. Indeed, this present holy day season is most sacredly being embraced within my mind and soul.
Grateful
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Beautiful to My Ears...
"I sought the LORD, and HE answered ME. HE delivered ME from 'ALL' MY fears." Psalm 34:4
How BEAUTIFUL is that!!!
VERY BEAUTIFUL TO MY EARS!!!
Good-bye all my fears!!!
Grateful
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Seasons -- A Time For Everything
Today, our daughter graduates from her university studies. For our family, today is a season to laugh and to dance. Yes, I awoke with Ecclesiasties 3 on my mind.
(1) For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. (2) A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. (3) A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. (4) A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance. (5) A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away. (6) A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. (7) A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak. (8) A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace.
(9) What do people really get for all their hard work? (10) I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. (11) Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. (12) So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. (13) And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. (14) And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him. (15) What is happening now has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again.
-- Ecclesiastes 3 (NLT 2007 Edition)
Lord, We Are...
Grateful
(9) What do people really get for all their hard work? (10) I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. (11) Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. (12) So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. (13) And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. (14) And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him. (15) What is happening now has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again.
-- Ecclesiastes 3 (NLT 2007 Edition)
Lord, We Are...
Grateful
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
How Beautiful The Ugly Cross!
A few years ago I preached a season of campmeeting messages in North Carolina. One of the worship leaders, a young man of God named Jason (who sings like David Crowder) was moved to write some new music following a message I preached titled "In the Cross".
Yes, it was about a year later, while I was speaking at a Carolina Pastors' Gathering on Oak Island, North Carolina when Jason greeted me and humbly gave me a homemade music CD. It was then and there that I learned he had written a new song after the inspiration of that campmeeting message.
Jason's new song warmed my heart and the title has beautifully burned its way into my soul: How Beautiful The Ugly Cross.
Lord, I thank you today that The Beauty of Your Holiness has been extended to me. Talk about Beauty for ashes! I am humbled beyond words.... Yes, I am speechless because of the fulfillment I have found at the foot of the cross -- Your Holy Cross. How Beautiful the Ugly Cross. Thanks Jesus and thanks Jason.
IF MY PEOPLE... WILL? I WILL! God's Promise in 2 Chron. 7:14.
Grateful
Yes, it was about a year later, while I was speaking at a Carolina Pastors' Gathering on Oak Island, North Carolina when Jason greeted me and humbly gave me a homemade music CD. It was then and there that I learned he had written a new song after the inspiration of that campmeeting message.
Jason's new song warmed my heart and the title has beautifully burned its way into my soul: How Beautiful The Ugly Cross.
Lord, I thank you today that The Beauty of Your Holiness has been extended to me. Talk about Beauty for ashes! I am humbled beyond words.... Yes, I am speechless because of the fulfillment I have found at the foot of the cross -- Your Holy Cross. How Beautiful the Ugly Cross. Thanks Jesus and thanks Jason.
IF MY PEOPLE... WILL? I WILL! God's Promise in 2 Chron. 7:14.
Grateful
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
A Beautiful Opportunity
Let us not forget the sacred preseason that leads us to the Glorious Main Event of our Lord's Resurrection year-after-year. Yes, as Henri Nouwen said, The Lenten Season offers a beautiful opportunity to discover the mystery of Christ within us.
So let's sacredly soak in the seven-word, secret message written in Colossians 1:27 -- Christ in you, the hope of glory. And let's get the secret message out during the Lenten Season and every season.
IF MY PEOPLE... WILL? I WILL! God's Promise in 2 Chron. 7:14.
Grateful
So let's sacredly soak in the seven-word, secret message written in Colossians 1:27 -- Christ in you, the hope of glory. And let's get the secret message out during the Lenten Season and every season.
IF MY PEOPLE... WILL? I WILL! God's Promise in 2 Chron. 7:14.
Grateful
Friday, February 5, 2010
Every Moment of Your Life is Sacred
These precious thoughts came to my mind yesterday during a quiet time -- true gifts of inspiration from God's Holy perspective to my human thinking. I bless you with the same precious thoughts today:
Your life is a sacrament -- a sacred moment before your Eternal God. Yes, every moment of your entire life is sacred to Him! Every breath you breathe is beautiful before your Holy God.
Don't compartmentalize your life between what's sacred and what you might consider to be something other than sacred -- your whole life is sacred. -- a James Spruill paraphrase
Psalm 139:3, 16-18 (NLT) -- (3) You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am. (16) You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. (17) How precious are your thoughts about me, O God! They are innumerable! (18) I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up in the morning, you are still with me!
Nehemiah 8:10b (NLT) -- This is a sacred day before our LORD. Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the LORD is your strength!
IF MY PEOPLE... WILL? I WILL! God's Promise in 2 Chron. 7:14.
Grateful
Your life is a sacrament -- a sacred moment before your Eternal God. Yes, every moment of your entire life is sacred to Him! Every breath you breathe is beautiful before your Holy God.
Don't compartmentalize your life between what's sacred and what you might consider to be something other than sacred -- your whole life is sacred. -- a James Spruill paraphrase
Psalm 139:3, 16-18 (NLT) -- (3) You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am. (16) You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. (17) How precious are your thoughts about me, O God! They are innumerable! (18) I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up in the morning, you are still with me!
Nehemiah 8:10b (NLT) -- This is a sacred day before our LORD. Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the LORD is your strength!
IF MY PEOPLE... WILL? I WILL! God's Promise in 2 Chron. 7:14.
Grateful
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Forgiveness Beautifully Defined
Years ago a friend of mine who was seeking mercy for a wrong that he undeniably wanted to make right (with the one he had offended) gave me this unforgettable definition for forgiveness when he softly and sincerely said, Here's what I am asking from the one I offended:
In asking for forgiveness, I am asking you to give up your right to hurt me for hurting you.
It was such a vulnerable and beautiful expression of humility that it left me totally speechless. Still does. And, oh yeah... forgiveness was extended to my vulnerable friend (by the one he had offended) in exactly the way he had hoped.
Amazing, indeed! Christ-like forgiveness. In fact, as Jesus was nailed on the Cross, a paraphrase of His prayer for us might be: Father forgive them... I give up my right to hurt them for hurting Me.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven. -- Words of Jesus in Luke 6:37.
ALL JOY!
Grateful
In asking for forgiveness, I am asking you to give up your right to hurt me for hurting you.
It was such a vulnerable and beautiful expression of humility that it left me totally speechless. Still does. And, oh yeah... forgiveness was extended to my vulnerable friend (by the one he had offended) in exactly the way he had hoped.
Amazing, indeed! Christ-like forgiveness. In fact, as Jesus was nailed on the Cross, a paraphrase of His prayer for us might be: Father forgive them... I give up my right to hurt them for hurting Me.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven. -- Words of Jesus in Luke 6:37.
ALL JOY!
Grateful
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