“God’s in his heaven. All’s right with the world.” Robert Browning. Always loved that phrase and think about it often when I’m on my porch. Ate breakfast on the porch this morning sitting in the swing, drinking my coffee, surveying my little world, watching my songbirds and butterflies enjoy the sunshine of the waking day. The morning has a soft wind chime symphony and a few cicada solos. The male cardinals are so red they are almost fluorescent. I know their mates think they’re wonderfully handsome. The purple finch sitting on the bird bath is as dark pink as a round ripe raspberry. Mr. Downy Woodpecker is contentedly hanging upside down on the suet basket eating his breakfast.

It’s so pretty outside, azure blue sky, lots of fluffy cotton boll clouds, bleached white on their rounded tops, light gray on their bottoms blushed with rain. The cigar smoke clouds did their best to overcast the blue sky canvas but the sun just kept burning off the thin smokey clouds. No rain fell today, just hot and humid on the landscape. A beautiful southern summer day.

Someone or something, probably Grandpaw raccoon passing by, knocked down one of my bird feeder poles and dragged the two feeders across the yard, spilling the seeds. I tried forever with a brick and a hammer to knock the pole back in the ground but the ground is just too hard since we haven’t had any rain lately. I gave up and pushed it down in one of my large vegetable garden pots. Probably fallen over by now. If it is raccoons, they’ll get it again tonight. I’ll get oldest brother, when he comes by for a porch visit, to help me get the pole back deep in the ground and I’ll get my critter trap back out. Guess I can’t use the critter trap with Kat here. Well anyway…

My dearest friend, my bosom buddy, my partner in crime, my sidekick, my confidant, and my wingwoman is retiring in a few weeks. She called today and we chatted and laughed, both sitting on our porches with our little dogs, Penelope and Charlie Brown. Can’t wait for her to join the group of porch rockers and porch swing sitters. We’ll be burning up the highway between Roanoke and Alex City, hitting all the thrift stores on our shoe string budgets, having spend the night parties. Great thing is she’s a porch sitter and bird watcher, too, so we’ll be happy just to perch together on our porches. Our friendship is such a blessing in my life. She’s the light when I’m in the darkness. As Thomas Aquinas wrote, “There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.” My favorite friendship quote, and it’s true about my dear friend — “A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails,” Donna Roberts.

Guess Mother Nature didn’t want to toast marshmallows and make s’mores tonight. She didn’t ignite a blazing wildfire across the horizon at dusk. A gleaming honey sunset kissed the turquoise clouds goodnight on the horizon as the sun walked down the sunset pageant runway on the arm of Father Sky. While the sun got ready to kiss the day goodnight, Mother Nature was mixing God’s watercolors on her palette, preparing to paint the clouds at dusk. Her brush strokes in shades of flamingo pale pinks, red grape violets, and ripe peach oranges were layered across the horizon like rainbow flavored cotton candy. On the high clouds she quickly touched the sky canvas with strokes of mauve and aquamarine. How could you not believe in a higher being when you look upon the breathtaking colors of a glorious sunset. Psalm 65:8 states “…You make the dawn and sunset shout for joy.” Yes, God does!

Ever seen the sun find a break in the clouds and focus all her rays on that opening, lighting up an otherwise dreary day with her warm sunshine. I love this quote from St. Francis of Assisi, “A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.” The sunbeam has power to warm the earth, burn the clouds away, heal our despair. We can be sunbeams for Jesus shining our lights of righteousness on this planet earth that needs our prayers. God is calling us to be a beacon of light for him, to shine in the world where there’s gloom. We live in troubling times and need to pray for God’s blessings and his grace to shine and light the darkness shadowing our earth.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven,” Matthew 5:16. Our faith can shine as we share our testimonies. We have the light of God inside us. We can spread this light to the world through our words and our actions. Let your light shine.

“The Sun is a daily reminder that we, too, can rise again from the darkness, that we, too, can shine our own light.” —S. Ajna