Today was awakened with an overcast sky diffusing the warm sun’s rays, illuminating my yard in soft light. The clouds were pressed close, keeping their colors secret, making the vanilla clouds stand in the forefront, soldiers bravely keeping the sun away. My yard was full of cardinals, beautiful birds, the male and female plumage contrasting and complimenting each other. For years I wondered why the male cardinal was so handsome and the female so demurely dowdy. When I started seriously observing the birds, I noticed the soft elegant beauty of the female cardinals dressed in velvet fawn brown plumage, orangey-red highlights on their wings and tails, sporting reddish feathered crests, jet black masks below their bright black eyes, red lipstick on their beaks. She is just as glorious as he is handsome.

As dusk walked up the street’s sidewalks, I watched the sunset pageant from my perch in the porch swing. The blazing ball of the sun rolled down the horizon burning as bright as a newly minted silver dollar. I shaded my eyes and peeking through my fingers I could see her prism rainbow points of light radiating in all directions. The sun is so glorious when she pulls the shades down on daylight. Father Sky then sketched his night sky exquisitely, a deep dark purple accented with sparkling diamonds. He hung a luminous waxing crescent moon to guide the night travelers and keep the jewel thieves away. The night is waking and the day is sleeping.

I really love this world we live in. I enjoy the seasons, get excited like a child when there is even a one percent chance of snow. Love watching the spring bloom and fall putting the landscape to bed in preparation of a winter’s sleep. We are so blessed to live in God’s creation. Our earth gives us a life of both joy and sorrow, beauty and hardship. We have sunny days and stormy days and God walks with us daily no matter the weather.

I love this quote from Kathleen Dean Moore — “The earth offers gift after gift — life and the living of it, light and the return of it, the growing things, the roaring things, fire and nightmares, falling water and the wisdom of friends, forgiveness. My god, the forgiveness, time, and the scouring tides. How does one accept gifts as great as these and hold them in the mind?”

We accept these gifts as tokens of God’s grace. The Lord loves us as a father loves his children and wants to be happy and prosper. The simple fact of being alive is a gift from God. God’s gifts are not just material possessions but the beauty of his creation, our relationships, and our everyday experiences. I’m thinking of tangible gifts I’ve been given today from the Lord’s Earth. Have to mention the wondrous songbirds, the velvet night sky with its luminous moon, the soft breezes to awaken the wind chime serenades, the sky in its art of overcast clouds, the fruit for my breakfast plate.

God provides everything we need to experience joy and satisfaction. Ecclesiastes 5:19 reads, “Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil — this is the gift of God.” God has entrusted his earth to us and as Christians we are stewards of this earth.

Scripture in James tells us “every good gift is from above, that is, from God.” Enjoy all the gifts that God’s grace provides and thank God daily for the blessings of this earth.

“We are called to live lives of gratitude, joy, and caring, profoundly moved by the bare fact that we live in the time of the singing of birds.” — Kathleen Dean Moore