The sky was sketched in winter blue today, dotted with white clouds kissed on their bottoms with cigar smoke shades of gray. The sun warmed the damp earth and brought the yard symphony to life, cardinals and chickadees chattering and singing, giving thanks for the beautiful morning as they warmed their wings in the sunshine.

I’m thinking how happy and content I am with my simple life. Bible scripture encourages us to focus on inner peace and spiritual wealth instead of material wealth. Sometimes being content just involves accepting things the way they are and not wishing your life away for something unobtainable. Just to wake up with breath for another day is a gift. Accepting life and the world as it is isn’t easy. If we truly love, we accept people as they truly are. We don’t try to change them. Thank God we have memories to sustain us, to make us smile, to help us remember days with loved ones who have left our lives.

Philippians 4:12 reads, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” Living life as a Christian, pursuing the path God has put before us, gives us contentment and peace. When we endure hardship, God gives us everything we need when we believe in him. God’s grace is unending.

Was warm enough to sit in the swing and ponder today. I sat perched in the porch swing letting the sun warm my face as Penelope and Kat took their sunbaths. Waited all day for the sunset knowing it would be a beautiful pageant with the crowd of cloud canvases gathering for Mother Nature’s watercolor brushes’ renderings. The sun rolled down the horizon late afternoon dressed in a formal gown of orange and red sequins, blinding in shades of a summer’s ripe peach, her gloved hand resting in the crook of Father Sky’s arm.

As the sun got closer to the sunset’s stage, Mother Nature painted the flood lights in pink lemonade shades and stroked her pink, vanilla, and turquoise watercolors across the curtains of the sky canvas. Wisps of cotton clouds, stretched and wrapped around the skyline in my neighborhood, were shaded in hard candy wrappers of pink and blue. Another glorious sunset painted for God’s glory with promises of tomorrow and the gift of an awakening sun.

Father Sky kissed the sun goodnight as she turned off the day’s lamps and woke a lovely night, hanging a waning gibbous milky moon, luminous and ethereal, in the navy inky-black dark of the night sky. He scattered handfuls of glittering diamonds to twinkle in the navy darkness, arranged the constellations so I could see the Big Dipper in the night sky, so beautiful and clear. Made me realize how small I am on Mother Earth’s planet.

Life is unpredictable and complex and bad things do happen. Three of my friends have lost loved ones recently and I pray for God to help them through their grief. Everyone handles challenges differently but how we handle these trials and tribulations matters most. God allows us to experience failure and pain. If we go to God in prayer during these difficult times our faith becomes deeper as we walk closer to God.

Psalm 23 reads, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” This passage of scripture assures us of God’s protective nature. When we’re bombarded by situations too hard to understand we are never alone. God is steadfast, his arms out to comfort us with his love.

Biblical scripture in Psalms says God “healeth the broken heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” We need to have enough faith in God to not let our troubling times push us away from him. These difficult situations are when we need to lean on God the most. God’s healing grace can heal a broken heart and give us peace.

“Nature teaches us simplicity and contentment because in its presence we realize we need very little to be happy.” — Mark Coleman