I’m perched in the porch swing enjoying this winter day’s awakening. The sky is so beautiful after last night’s storm, the blue sky is bluer, the white clouds are whiter. The clouds are color washed on their bottoms in shades of grays and blues and purples. The sun is bright and yellow making the yellow pansy blooms glow with color. My yard is full of the songbirds I love. Another glorious day on planet Earth! I bet Mother Nature is mixing her watercolor palette now, excited to have the fluffy white clouds to paint at sunset. I can imagine the joy Noah and his family felt when they gazed out the windows of the ark, saw God’s promised rainbow in the bright sunshine of a blue sky day, the forty days and nights of rain finally ended.

Shakespeare wrote, “The earth has music for those who listen.” I hear the earth’s music today — rustling of leaves when the breeze gets heavy, songs and calls of the songbirds, knocks of the scuppernong vines as the birds land on the slender limbs, kuks and chattering of the squirrels, meows of Kat, barks and woofs of the neighborhood dogs, steady drops of water from my clogged gutter and wet swing pillows. Nature is full of sounds if we sit quietly and pay attention. Nature’s music inspires me and carries the truth of God’s words.

Psalm 13:6 reads, “I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” The Bible is full of verses about music that impact our spiritual lives. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God,” Colossians 3:16.

Looked up the words to the children’s song, Jesus Loves Me, and discovered the song had five stanzas. We all learned the first stanza as children. I think we can read the other four stanzas as a prayer.

“Jesus loves me! This I know, as he loved so long ago, taking children on his knee, saying, ‘Let them come to me.’ Jesus loves me still today, walking with me on my way, wanting as a friend to give light and love to all who live. Jesus loves me! He who died heaven’s gate to open wide; he will wash away my sin, let his little child come in. Jesus loves me! He will stay close beside me all the way; thou hast bled and died for me, I will henceforth live for thee.

“By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.” Psalm 42:8.