Today, April’s Fool Day, is my 68th birthday. I was born on Easter Sunday while the church bells were ringing for Sunday services in Roanoke. April Fool’s Day has on been on Easter Sunday only four times since 1900. The next time Easter Sunday will fall on April 1 will be in 2029. My grandchildren think it’s so funny that my birthday is on April Fool’s Day.

My daddy came home from the hospital after my birth to tell my brothers, then four and seven years old, that the Easter Bunny had brought them a baby sister. Middle vet brother promptly piped up, “Tell him to take it back. We don’t want it.” Brotherly love is so special! I love them, all three of them, and they are kind and loving to me. I think, in hindsight, they’re glad the Easter Bunny didn’t take me back to the cabbage patch.

Celebrated my birthday with lunch out with oldest sister-in-law and her daughter and then off to my favorite feed and seed store for a little birthday shopping. We sat on the porch after our shopping and ate ice cream sundaes. Thanks girls for a happy day. Had lots of phone calls and happy messages. I appreciate all of them. Thanks friends, for remembering my birthday.

Enjoyed the porch all afternoon, perched in the swing watching the birds and squirrels, reading my books of quotes and pondering on them. The sky was a full study of overcast clouds, cigar smoke grays and dull whites. Father Sky was heavy handed with his pastel sticks and kept the sun hidden all day with is his thickly sketched clouds.

I’ve really enjoyed my new book of quotes, The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said. I made it to 1,478 today. It’s humorous and not scholarly and some of the quotes are so funny. Been jotting the occasional quote down and I’m amazed by some things Eleanor Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson have been quoted as saying. Got tickled by this one today, “Bad spellers of the world untie,” Graffito. This made me laugh, too, “No!,” what President Jimmy Carter’s daughter Amy said when asked by a reporter if she had any message for the children of America. Bless her heart, at least she was honest.

I was faithful to Mother Nature this afternoon, sitting in the swing after supper watching for the pageant of sunset hidden by a thick layer of dull white cloud curtains. In my imagination, I saw the sun dressed in a formal strapless gown of sequined sunshine yellow, long white gloves on her slender arms, stepping on the stage proudly, her hand on the arm of the handsome Father Sky. As Father Sky walked the sun down the horizon a blaze of watermelon red flooded across the skyline and melted into the aqua and pale huckleberry of the high clouds. The sun dropped off the horizon as the blue colors of twilight raced across the neighborhood.

Father Sky kissed the sun goodnight and stepped from the twilight into the inky dark of the nighttime sky. He pulled the moon and stars from their cozy clouds covers and placed them on the stage of darkness to illuminate the world’s dreams. The moon was a luminous beacon of light in the black abyss of the sky, the stars a tapestry of twinkling diamonds. Night has awakened gloriously as the day goes to sleep sublimely.

The March winds were occasionally blowing today, softly pinging the wind chimes, ruffling the cardinals’ crests, pushing the catkins from the old oaks limbs. I came across a quote about the wind. “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination,” Jimmy Dean.

When we follow Jesus’s teachings, our life’s destination to the pearly gates of heaven is a life long commitment. We get blown off the path of Christianity when the storm winds of temptation blow. We can’t change the direction the wind is blowing but we can change our mindset and through prayers and thanksgiving we can trim our sails and adjust our course to get back on our journey to God and his kingdom of heaven.

The seas of our lives are not always smooth and calm. Our journeys are filled with broken hearts, changes and challenges, all things we experience that make us human. How we react to the rough currents as we sail through life determines the rest of our life’s journey. As we learn how to sail our ship, we’ll overcome the rough waters and experience joy as we learn to navigate life through our faith in God. We need to let God be the skipper of our sailboats.

“May the seas lie smooth before you. May a gentle breeze forever fill your sails. May sunshine warm your face, and kindness warm your soul.” — A Sailor’s Prayer