Today is pretty, blue skies, yellow sunshine. Two intersecting jet contrails have drawn a huge cross on the sky canvas, so majestic and so fleeting, no time for a photograph. Almost gone, now resembling a shore bird in flight, wings outstretched, long legs tucked tightly. If these bumblebees, flying around the pansies, grow any larger, I’m going to use them as a taxi and ride them to visit the neighborhood’s tiny pink wildflowers. I love nature. The wind is talking through the wind chimes’ tintinnabulations, sometimes soft and melodic, other times loud and boisterous, banging out a warning of a coming thunderstorm tonight.

I’m perched in the porch swing watching the earth spin on its axis. The turkey buzzards are here riding the spiral wind currents up in the high sky. I can see the little buds on the oak tree branches and a faint dusting of pollen on the porch and on my car. Spring is doing her best to wake up while Old Man Winter is still clinging to a thread of coldness. I think Spring has to nap a little longer.

I sat on the porch and watched the day’s demise as the sunset lit a wildfire burning orange and red across the horizon, the trees silhouetted jet black against the fiery orange background. Dusk was beautiful and quiet, welcoming the night’s darkness with open arms holding a luminous moon and twinkling stars.

Joseph Roux wrote, “A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.” As I sit in the swing pondering, I’m thinking about quotes we can attribute to God. I’m ashamed my remembered list of his quotes is so short. Here’s my list — “Be still and know that I am God. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. Fear not, I am with you.” All of the quotes I remember are God’s words I relied on when Chief died and I was trying to navigate the darkness of my grief. I am so thankful that I have faith in my prayers and faith in God’s grace.

Listing Bible quotes we’ve memorized, most of us would remember Jesus saying, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” I love the verse, “Be still and know that I am God.” I always hear that verse in my mind when I watch the sun set. To me, sunset is a message of love from our Holy Father. How can you not believe in a living God when you watch a sunset come alive across the horizon, the beautiful strokes of Mother Nature’s watercolor brushes painting the sunset, the wonderful peace and quiet contemplation that comes when twilight sweeps across the landscape, day ending in a glorious work of art in colors created by God’s promise of the sun always rising on another new day. I should have this favorite scripture memorized by now ‘cause I’ve written it a thousand times. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands,” Psalm 19:1.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” I think of this quote often when I say my prayers at night knowing I can put my worries and my burdens in God’s hands and let his peace free me from the weight of carrying them. He will give me a peaceful rest as I lay my head down for sleep. Isaiah 41:10 reads, “Fear not, I am with you.” We really have no need to fear because God will show us the way out of the darkness as we reach for his hand. He says, “I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” We never walk alone with God in our hearts.

Did a little research and found the most searched for quote from God in the scriptures is Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Doesn’t matter if hardships come into our life, God reassures us through the scriptures he has plans for us and our lives.

I am most grateful for my faith in God. So many, many times in my life I’ve hung onto a short raveling thread of faith while God was faithfully reweaving the thread on the other end with his loving hands, giving me time to work my way up to the stronger thread in his grip. He didn’t pull me me up to the stronger place, he let me work my way faithfully up on my own time frame, listening to my prayers and healing me through his grace. We can find peace and calm and security through our faith in a loving God.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 reads, “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.” I think gratitude helps us be happy and more importantly helps us be content. If we’re grateful for our circumstances positive things happen in our life. Appreciate every day with its beautiful sunshine or its thundering rainstorm. We only pass this way once. Be grateful for what you have and thank God for all your everyday blessings.

“When you are grateful — when you can see what you have — you unlock blessings to flow in your life.” — Suze Orman