What a way to start the day---with a “cuppa” and one of Tootsie’s macaroons--a cool morning, and my heritage snowball bush in full bloom. (The original rooting came from my grandmother’s childhood home in Hampton Station, KY, to my mother's childhood home on South Second in Clarksville, TN, to my childhood home in Hopkinsville, KY, and now back to TN, ready to pass on to each of my children.) Add to that a red Adirondack chair with a pot of bright red double begonias (gift from HHS Student Impact and Andi Darlington) on the table right beside me---a table that is also stacked with my Bible, Jesus Calling, and my "MAC Journey" journal.
I wanted to start my day the way Linda Dickens would have started hers---like a blank sheet given to the Lord, eagerly anticipating what the Lord would write on it. She sought His agenda, His plan.
Mary Flo does much the same---she calls it being spontaneous. I see it as her way of allowing God to be in control and rejoicing over whatever or whomever God brings across her path that day. Not that she doesn’t plan---she does. She has a calendar on her computer that is synced with her palm pilot but that’s just her framework---the parameters of an organized life---not set in stone. (like agendas of type A folks) it's one that is joyfully expectant of additions or deletions from the Lord. She practices Proverbs 16:9. “The mind of man plans his way but the Lord directs his steps.”
Jesus Calling, as always, seemed to echo my thoughts. “Come to me with empty hands.” “Let me fill……” So I went to my next standard devotional, My Utmost for His Highest journal. It is chocked full of stickie notes, a picture or two, pithy grabbers and song lyrics. Some are wedged in better than others. This morning when I picked it up, the lyrics of the hymn, “Lord of the Ages” fell out---such a God-thing---just succinct verses to express my rambling thoughts.
God of the morning, gladly your children (child)
worship(s) before you...
I am your(s) now and forever kept by your hand.
(May I) Crown You each moment, “Lord of Today!”
(my paraphrase)
worship(s) before you...
I am your(s) now and forever kept by your hand.
(May I) Crown You each moment, “Lord of Today!”
(my paraphrase)
Linda and Mary Flo have done that in their lives---crowning Him each morning, “Lord of the Day.” That’s’ why both of these women’s lives are worth emulating---God directed/directs their steps. Like the apostle Paul, they could say, “do as I do.” “Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.” (Philippians 3:17) Wow, what a testimony that would be---to live my life in such a way that others would see Christ in me, the hope of glory.
Dotsy,
ReplyDeleteI thought you might enjoy the following quotes from Mother Theresa. Like Linda and Mary Flo, she crowned the Lord each morning and let God direct her steps. What profound thoughts she had, truly molded by God. Like her little pencil in the writing hand of God, your blog sends God's love and your personal testimony allowing others to see Christ in you. Keep putting oil in the lamp.
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
Mother Teresa
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa
Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.
Mother Teresa
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
Mother Teresa
Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Mother Teresa
Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
Mother Teresa
God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try.
Mother Teresa
Good works are links that form a chain of love.
Mother Teresa
I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.
Mother Teresa
I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.
Mother Teresa
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
Mother Teresa
I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.
Mother Teresa
I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.
Mother Teresa
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?
Mother Teresa
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Mother Teresa
If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.
Mother Teresa
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
Mother Teresa
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
Mother Teresa
In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.
Mother Teresa
Intense love does not measure, it just gives.
Mother Teresa
It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.
Mother Teresa
It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.
Mother Teresa
It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy.
Mother Teresa
It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.
Mother Teresa
Jesus said love one another. He didn't say love the whole world.
Mother Teresa
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
Mother Teresa
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
Mother Teresa
Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
Mother Teresa
Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given.
Mother Teresa
Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.
Mother Teresa
Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.
Mother Teresa
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.
Mother Teresa
Loneliness is the most terrible poverty.
Mother Teresa
Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action.
Mother Teresa
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home.
Mother Teresa
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.
Mother Teresa
Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.
Mother Teresa
One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.
Mother Teresa
Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.
Mother Teresa
Peace begins with a smile.
Mother Teresa
Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
Mother Teresa
Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity of my high vocation, and its many responsibilities. Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way to coldness, unkindness, or impatience.
Mother Teresa
The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.
Mother Teresa
The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between.
Mother Teresa
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
Mother Teresa
The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.
Mother Teresa
The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.
Mother Teresa
The success of love is in the loving - it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done.
Mother Teresa
There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those.
Mother Teresa
There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in - that we do it to God, to Christ, and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.
Mother Teresa
There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.
Mother Teresa
There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use.
Mother Teresa
We are all pencils in the hand of God.
Mother Teresa
We can do no great things, only small things with great love.
Mother Teresa
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.
Mother Teresa
We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.
Mother Teresa
We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.
Mother Teresa
We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
Mother Teresa
We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Mother Teresa
Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.
Mother Teresa
Norm