My little songbird friend, Mr. Wren, was waking the day this morning with his loud cheerful aria. Not many birds in my yard today except the faithful quiet cardinals. The little fighting purple finches have moved on. I don’t think the cardinals miss their loud chattering and fighting. Saw a white butterfly when I walked out to sit on the porch swing. It had such an erratic flight path, bouncing around like a rubber bouncy ball. I decided it might be a nighttime moth. I was thinking the moth woke up in the bright sunshine frightened and didn’t know how to fly in the light of day. Internet says it’s probably a European cabbage butterfly, the most common of white butterflies. He or she needs to go back to flight school. Made me dizzy just to watch him dance through the yard.

Beautiful porch swing day! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the wood thrush is bathing in the bird bath. All is well with my little world. Nature is bringing me peace today. That wood thrush is a thorough bold bather. His mother won’t have to check under his armpits. He almost splashed all the water out. Some think the wood thrushes’ call “ee-oh-lay” is the most beautiful of all bird songs. I love my songbirds. I feel they are gifts from Chief.

Opened one of my quote books this afternoon and the first quote I read was, “Every day might not be glorious, but there’s something glorious in every day. Find the glory!” Caleb. I love the thought of something glorious in every day. Guess every day brings a blessing or a lesson. I think we can find small positive moments in every day. A hot cup of coffee, a lovely songbird symphony, a glorious sunset all help me focus on the clouds’ silver lining reminding me to have gratitude for life’s simple blessings. Even on difficult days the Lord sends us moments of joy. If we actively look for positive things in each day we can conquer negative thinking. I always say just waking up with breath for another day is a glorious gift from God. Psalm 118:24 reminds us, “This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

A loud lonely train horn just sounded down the railroad tracks, mourningly echoing through the lingering light of the coming darkness. I love trains and always notice how their horns change sounds in the seasons and in the times of day. The train’s musical wails matched the mood of the afternoon perfectly. Another train followed with a stretched out long wail singing a song of late evening. When I went to bed I heard the music of a freight train’s horn echo four times down the steel rails, beautiful haunting night melody. Always lived where a train expressed itself and I love hearing them singing the day and the night awake.

I love this quote from Walden by Thoreau that reads,“Let us spend one day as deliberately as nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and company go, let the bells ring and the children cry.” Isn’t that a beautiful reminder to live in the moment and focus on what really matters, to contentedly ride the steel train rails of life without daily distractions.

These words got me to thinking of our spirituality as compared to the cold steel rails of the train’s tracks. Life runs on a set of spiritual rails if we ground ourselves in God’s truth. The train tracks symbolize a directional path our faith flows. Some of us are lined up straight on the steel rails of our faith, hanging tight, riding the straight and narrow predetermined path. Others of us are hesitant to travel so straight a path and occasionally veer off on a sidetrack. Throughout our life we experience trials that pull us off the rails of our spirituality and we flounder trying to get our faith back on the straight rails. We let the little changes and worries of everyday life distract our beliefs and send us down another path. We try to travel the path alone without the rails of faith to show us the way and we get lost in the journey. “Life is a train that stops at no stations; you either jump abroad or stand on the platform and watch as it passes,” Yasmina Khadra.

I think God wants us to forge our own journey. He wants us to enjoy life and witness to others, bringing them into his kingdom through our actions and words. The depth of our faith in God is a determining factor on our path through life. We can have a clearer direction of our journey when we dedicate our life to Jesus. Our destination ends at the gates of heaven and we should not let life’s challenges change that direction. “When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer,” Corrie ten Boom. We are the conductors of our life but God is always in charge of the destination. We just have to have enough faith and trust to let God be the engineer.

“Don’t give up when life gets hard. Sit still. Be still. And trust the One who’s in control. God is the Engineer of your life — He sees what you can’t see.” — Facebook