Before the Birth of One of Her Children

 

All things within this fading world hath end,
Adversity doth still our joys attend;
No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,
But with death's parting blow are sure to meet.
The sentence past is most irrevocable,
A common thing, yet oh, inevitable.
How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend,
How soon't may be thy lot to lose thy friend,
We both are ignorant, yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That when the knot's untied that made us one,
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And if I see not half my days that's due,
What nature would, God grant to yours and you;
The many faults that well you know I have
Let be interred in my oblivious grave;
If any worth or virtue were in me,
Let that live freshly in thy memory
And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harmes,
Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms,
And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains
Look to my little babes, my dear remains.
And if thou love thyself, or loved'st me,
These O protect from stepdame's injury.
And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse,
With some sad sighs honor my absent hearse;
And kiss this paper for thy dear love's sake,
Who with salt tears this last farewell did take.

 

~Anne Bradstreet

The Descent from the Cross

Is this the Face that thrills with awe

Seraphs who veil their face above?

Is this the Face without a flaw,

The Face that is the Face of Love?

Yea, this defaced, a lifeless clod,

Hath all creation's love sufficed,

Hath satisfied the love of God,

This Face the Face of Jesus Christ.

 

 

~Christina Rossetti

 



Paradoxes of Happiness

Accept myself, and expect more of myself.

Give myself limits to give myself freedom.

Make people happier by acknowledging that they're not feeling happy.

Plan ahead to be spontaneous; only with careful preparation do I feel carefree.

Accomplish more by working less.

Happiness doesn't always make me feel happy.

Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.

It's very hard to make things easier.

My material desires have a spiritual aspect.

Hell is other people. Heaven is other people.

~Gretchen Rubin, Happier at Home

Happier at Home is Gretchen's follow-up to The Happiness Project, which I am hoping to read next month. I really enjoyed Happier at Home, it seemed to balance out some of the materials I have been reading on home management and the like. And I can always use balance in that area. 

Visit Rubin's website The Happiness Project

A Childhood Favorite

Something about March weather always makes me dig up my copy of "The Secret Garden."

Days that are rain-soaked and chilly, walks through mud and puddles, days where the sunshine just seems happy to be out. The anticipation of bright blooms and soft greens, when the sight of a bud makes you do a happy dance. (Actually, I squealed when I spotted a budding tree on the way to church the other day! Totally shocked Roman.) Welcoming the robins, and other songbirds with open windows and breezy curtains. The weather is far from warm right now, and we still could expect snow, but spring is coming!

Frances Hodgson Burnett's tale of two selfish, spoiled, and miserable children is a hopeful one. A reminder to look past the bleak and difficult winter to the humble beauty of spring. The ever-cheerful Martha inspired me to learn how to skip rope to a hundred. Who didn't want to be friends with Dickon and his creatures. And their mother, Mrs. Sowerby sounds like the sensible and affectionate woman that I wish to be to my children. Even the grouchy characters, like Mrs. Medlock and Ben Weatherstaff seem to soften around the presence of the children's growing contentment and joy. There is hope that things will become brighter and happier when you work hard and forget to be selfish.

The rainstorm had ended and the gray mist and clouds had been swept away in the night by the wind. The wind itself had ceased and a brilliant, blue sky arched high over the moorland. Never, never had Mary dreamed of a sky so blue. In India skies were hot and blazing; this was of a deep cool blue which almost seemed to sparkle like the waters of some lovely bottomless lake, and here and there, high, high in the arched blueness floated small clouds of snow-white fleece. The far-reaching world of the moor itself looked softly blue instead purple-black or awful dreary gray.
  "Aye," said Martha with a cheerful grin."Th' storms over for a bit. It does like this at this time o' th' year. It goes off in a night like it was pretendin' it had never been here an' never meant to come again. That's because th' springtime's on its way. It's a long way off yet, but it's comin'."
~Chapter 7, The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

 

I think I need to do a spring photo session with my kids in their wellies.

November and December

November - with uncanny witchery in its changed trees. With murky red sunsets flaming in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear days when the austere woods were beautiful and gracious in a dignified serenity of folded hands and closed eyes - days full of a fine, pale sunshine that sifted through the late, leafless gold of the juniper trees and glimmered among the grey beeches, lighting up evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines. Days with a high sprung sky of flawless turquoise. Days when an exquisite melancholy seemed to hang over the landscape and dream about the lake. But days, too, of the wild blackness of great autumn storms, followed by dank, wet, streaming nights when there was witch-laughter in the pines and fitful moans among the mainland trees. What cared they? Old Tom had built his roof well and his chimney drew.
"Warm fire - books - comfort - safety from storm - our cats on the rug." Said Barney,"would you be any happier now if you had a million dollars?"

December. Early snows and Orion. The pale fires of the Milky Way. It was really winter now - wonderful, cold, starry winter. Days of clear brilliance. Evenings that were like cups of glamour - the purest vintage of winter's wine. Nights with their fire of stars. Cold, exquisite sunrises. Lovely ferns of ice over the windows of the Blue Castle. Moonlight on birches in a silver thaw. Ragged shadows on windy evenings. Great silences, austere and searching. Ice-grey twilights, broken by snow-squalls, when their cozy living room with its goblins of firelight and inscrutable cats seemed cozier than ever.

~ L. M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

Two Temples

A Builder builded a temple,
He wrought it with grace and skill;
Pillars and groins and arches
All fashioned to work his will.
Men said, as they saw it's beauty,
"It shall never know decay;
Great is thy skill, O Builder!
Thy fame shall endure for aye!"

A Mother builded a temple
With loving and infinite care,
Planning each arch with patience,
Laying each stone with prayer.
None praised her unceasing efforts,
None knew her wondrous plan,
For the temple the Mother builded
Was unseen by the eyes of man.

Gone is the Builder's temple,
Crumpled into the dust;
Low lies each stately pillar,
Food for consuming rust.
But the temple the Mother builded
Will last while the ages roll,
For that beautiful unseen temple
Was a child's immortal soul.

~Hattie Vose Hall

Little Red Bike

Mindy has the sweetest songs that seem to reflect the simple joy of an ordinary life.

 

The Seasons of the Soul

Why am I cast down and despondently sad
When I long to be happy and joyous and glad?
Why is my heart heavy with unbearable weight
As I try to escape this soul-saddened state?
I ask myself often what makes life this way -
Why is the song silenced in my heart today?
And then with God's help it all becomes clear-
The soul has it seasons just the same as the year.
I too must pass through life's autumn of dying,
A desolate period of heart-hurt and crying,
Followed by winter, in whose frostbitten hand
My heart is as frozen as the snow-covered land.
We too must pass through the seasons God sends,
Content in the knowledge that everything ends.

~Helen Steiner Rice

Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our fev'rish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind;
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard,
Beside the Syrian Sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word,
Rise up and follow Thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe thru the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak thru the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still small voice of calm.

~John Greenleaf Whittier

September

The goldenrod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit bending down.

The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.

The sedge's flaunt their harvest
In every meadow nook,
And asters by the brookside
Make asters in the brook.

From dew lanes at morning
The grapes sweet odors rose;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies-

By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather
And autumn's best of cheer.

~Helen Hunt Jackson

Falling Leaves

From My Reading List

If the heights of our joy are measured by the depths of our gratitude, and gratitude is but a way of seeing, a spiritual perspective of smallness night offer a vital way of seeing especially conducive to gratitude. A Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp

Pride slays thanksgiving...A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves. Henry Ward Beecher

Polly didn't think she had done much, but it was one of the little things which are always waiting to be done in this world of ours, when rainy days come so often, where spirits get out of tune and duty won't go hand in hand with pleasure. Little things of this sort are especially good work for little people; a kind little thought, an unselfish little act, a cheery little word, are so sweet and comfortable that no one can fail to feel their beauty and love the giver no matter how small they are. Mothers do a deal of this sort of thing, unseen, unthanked, but felt and remembered long afterward and never lost, for this is the simple magic that binds hearts together and keeps homes happy. An Old-Fashioned Girl, Louisa May Alcott

A Carillon of Bells

Dear Lord,
  Faiths fingers are joyfully touching the keys of this carillon of sweet bells this morning, and making them ring jubilantly to the praise of your name!

How shall he not!
  How shall he not!
     He that spared not!
        How shall he not!

What a peal of absolute triumph it is! Not a note of doubt or uncertainty mars the heavenly music.
  Awake, my heart,
      and realize it is your faith which is making such glorious melody!

Press the tuneful keys again, for faith holds festival today, and the joy of assurance is working wonders!

~Susannah Spurgeon, excerpt from her devotional A Carillon of Bells 

He that spared not his own Son ... how shall he not with him also freely give us all things. Romans 8:23

An Old Favorite

Ahh I am sitting down, I have a huckleberry soda, a handful of Hershey's kisses, and a pile of favorite books. This is a refreshing way to spend spend my evening. After a couple days filled with mental and emotional stress I looked forward to this time perusing words and works that I find encouraging. Funny, what can jump out from old favorites in moments of quiet.

My mother introduced me to "Stepping Heavenward" by Elizabeth Prentiss when I was a teenager. I frequently pull it off the the shelf and browse the pages again for nuggets of encouragement. It is the fictional diary of an 19th century young woman, and covers her life from the age of 16 through her marriage and mothering years. So much ground, and relevant to different phases of life. I am sure to come back to it for many years. So without further ado, some quotes.

God never gives us hindrances. On the contrary, He means, in making us wives and mothers, to put us into the very conditions of holy living. But if we abuse His gifts by letting them take His place in our hearts, it is an act of love on His part to take them away, or to destroy our pleasure in them. It is delightful to know that there are some generous souls on earth, who love their dear ones with all their hearts, yet give those hearts unreservedly to Christ.  (My husband has such a generous soul)

Here is a sweet mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God, and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, I minister in Christs name. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mothers heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her most tender cares, to her lifelong prayers!

Happiness, in other words love, in married life is not a mere accident. When the union has been formed, as most Christian unions are, by God Himself, it is His intention and His will that it shall prove the unspeakable joy of both husband and wife, and become more and more so from year to year.

I think a mother, especially, must learn to enter into the happy moods of her children at the very moment when her own heart is sad. And it may be as religious an act for her to romp with them at that time as to pray with them at others.

Like Mother, Like Son

Do you know that your soul is of my soul such a part,
That you seem to fiber and core of my heart?
None other can pain me as you, dear, can do,
None other can please me or praise me as you.

Remember the world will be quick with its blame
If shadow or stain ever darken your name.
"Like mother, like son" is a saying so true
The world will judge largely the "mother" by you.

Be yours then the task, if task it shall be,
To force the proud world to do homage to me.
Be sure it will say, when its verdict you've won,
"She reaped what she sowed. Lo! this is her son."

~Margaret Johnston Grafflin

Pause for a moment

As we rush about the last days of summer, let us fill them with gratitude above all else.

Anne Bradstreet, Mother

Diverse children have their different natures: some are like flesh which nothing but salt will keep from putrefaction, some again like tender fruits that are best preserved with sugar. Those parents are wise that can fit their nurture according to their nature.

 ~Anne Bradstreet

 

 

Sidenote: Happy Sweet Sixteen to my fun little sis-in-law Raydeemie!

And thanks for introducing Ethan to frogs.

 

 

I Never Saw a Moor

I never saw a Moor--
I never saw the Sea--
Yet I know how the Heather looks
And what a Billow be.

I never spoke with God
Nor visited in Heaven--
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were given--

~Emily Dickinson

I have seen the sea.

And someday I hope to see the moors.

And someday I will see the Heavenly realm.

Reading List Quotes

...if there is God in this place -- expect to see God.  Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with suffering doesn't rescue the suffering. The converse does. The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even the here and now, They are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world. Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

...Michael asked,"Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?"
  "Nothing, precious," she said,"they are the eyes a mother leaves behind to guard her children."
She went from bed to bed singing enchantments over them, and little Michael flung his arms round her."Mother," he cried, "I am glad of you." J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

The First of First Ladies

The past has so much to offer us. Search for the truth others learned to help you learn to live a your life well.