High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘Faith’

Ah!  It’s the harbingers of hope, burst through to the light, ready to unfurl their flags.  Here is spring’s first guard, singing its joy in the rain.

Flower dreams swirl in my head: the blossoms are waking!

It just goes to show you that even the gentle can be brave.  Even the most delicate can persevere through the darkness.  Holding firmly to their dreams, trusting the song of their souls, they endured the trials, bearing them with patience and faith.

That’s all it takes.  And in the end, they break through, gloriously unfolding, their beauty delighting us all.

Out of the blue luck comes, unfolding its blossoms and promises.   When you hold to your dreams, believing, the Universe connects you with everything you need to make them come true.

Oh, what you need may take a far different shape than what you had imagined.  The Universe knows far better than we ourselves what it will take to put our dreams together.  And in the end, you get more than you dared to wish for.

You have to keep an open mind and be ready for surprises.  And when inspiration comes, you have to be ready to grab it, right now, and to run wherever it points you.  It’s all an act of faith.

.

.

Few places are totally barren or wholly devoid of hope.  Life pushes itself through the smallest cracks, takes root in the most unlikely places.

Eventually, the longest winter gives way to spring.  The darkness gives way to light.

Be at peace.

You, who are not made of rock, are filled with more possibilities than you know and have eternity in which to fulfill them.

Keep faith alive in your heart; hold fast to your aspirations.  Regardless of appearances or circumstances, life will make a way.

Love pushes itself through the narrowest openings.  In the rockiest places, it spreads its boundless grace.

“Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.” ~George Iles

It had been a struggle all along.  The leaves from the oak above her had piled deeply on the soil the autumn before she was born.  It took her so long to push through them that when she finally burst through to the light, she was late.

The others were already putting out their flowers while she was barely a sprout.  But gazing at their accomplishments, she saw what she might become and her spirit filled with determination and her heart brimmed with hope.

The neighborhood was terribly crowded and she was small.  She got only little scraps of sunlight here and there.  But she made the best of what she was given and was happy.

Sometimes the other plants would mock her.  But the oak, in whose roots she nestled, whispered to her to keep faith.  “Don’t you listen to them, little one,” he would say.  “You’ve got grit.  It’s your dreams that matter.  You just keep on keeping on.”

She was the last flower in the woods to finally blossom.  But she had believed all along the day would come.  Even though the hours of darkness grew long, even though the frost nibbled at her leaves, even though the other flowers were long since gone and the great oak had showered down almost all its leaves, her hope kept her going.

And finally, the day before the first snow, her seeds were finished and sailed away, burrowing beneath the fallen leaves where they would spend the winter before bursting to life in the spring.  And the little plant was filled with satisfaction, and the giant oak whispered, “Well done.”

Sometimes, to keep faith that the world is a place where goodness and beauty reign is not an easy thing.

The din of global conflicts and catastrophes, both natural and man-made, can be deafening, so saturated are we with their sound.  The darkness of the world’s struggles, inhumanity and pain, painted as they are with such wide, deep brushes across the lens of every public medium, can blind us to the existence of hope’s light.

But the light remains, as does the music.  And if you will but hold to your belief in them, they will come to you in gifts of grace, penetrating your despair with their truth and power.

The goodness and beauty of life far outweigh the shadows.  They are the essence of reality, upholding and sustaining it, always available, eternally present, even when we are lost in confusion.

Your very longing for them is the proof of their existence.  You would not weep over the world’s turmoil if you heart didn’t know the reality of peace.  You wouldn’t despair over conflict if you didn’t know the beauty of kindness and the light that a wisp of love can cast.

So believe, even when darkness overwhelms you, even when pain crushes out your reason.  Keep faith, and when you least expect it, a shaft of light will find you, a gift of grace will appear, gently singing life’s endless, beautiful, comforting song.

.

May your pathway open into sunlight and stepping stones show you the way.  May the waters be placid around you, the breezes mild and the weather fair.

May each step you take enlarge you, expanding your vision, your courage and faith.

May you dare the unknown with confidence and find loveliness wherever you go.

May your heart speak thanks for every grace offered, and your hands reach out in kindness to all you meet along the way.

May you hear the grand Yes whispering all around you and breathe in rhythm with its song, knowing that it sings for you, and in you, and of you, for you are truly its own.

.

Mixed with the joy of life, suffering.  Mixed with the beauty, pain.  Walk gently in the world, my friends, and be slow to condemn.  You cannot tell just by looking what agonies your neighbor’s heart bears, what thorns have pierced his soul.

Wear your kindness on your sleeve; keep a packet of comfort in your pocket.  Be ready to extend a hand, a word of condolence, a gesture of grace.  Tomorrow you could be the one in need, longing for a word of understanding and reassurance.

But today, while the sun shines on your path, while the breezes are fair, look on the world with a sweet compassion and let your life exude the fragrance of  a faith that knows, in the end, love reigns and all will be well.

The tree almost seemed to be quivering with excitement, so laden were its branches with buds, ready to burst into their grand hoorah.

When I first looked up at it and saw them, I laughed out loud with delight.  Who would have thought, mere weeks ago, when the world was sullen beneath thick skies and heaped in knee-deep snow, that such wonders as this would soon appear?  Who would have guessed then that this little tree with its thin, bare branches would erupt into such dazzling beauty?

The potential for miracles is everywhere.  Never discount it, even when the world is stark and bare and shows no sign of life or hope.  You never know what tomorrow will bring.  It could sing with untold joy.

Beneath the bleakest of appearances, happiness waits to color the world, to unfurl its potential, to paint life with its fragrance and light.  It can blossom in the most unexpected places.  It can erupt from hearts that seemed hopelessly frozen and devoid of even a hint of life.

You never know.  A little warmth, a little sunshine, a turning of the globe can work wonders.  Keep faith.  The potential for miracles is everywhere.

For brief moments throughout the day, patches of blue sky floated above us.  “Look!” someone would exclaim from a window, “blue sky!”

Because the world has been blanketed with thick, snow-bearing clouds for most of the month and bathed in cold, gray colors, bits of blue seemed a near-miraculous sight.  Seeing them was like hearing laughter after weeks of solemnity.  They gave us hope that springtime was hiding just over the horizon after all and so brought glimmers of joy.

Few things gleam of joy the way hope does.  Hope is like an appetizer for relief.  It keeps you moving forward in the belief that things must inevitably change for the better.  If not tomorrow, then the day after that, or the day after that, light will break through the darkness; sunshine will pour through the clouds.  And the mere thought of it is enough to lift your weariness.

Hope is a kind of faith in ultimate goodness, a trust that rainbows follow the rain, that after the winter, daffodils and robins will return.  And the relief that hope promises is enough to let you see that the glimmers of joy that produced it are happening right now, that this moment brought them.  And that’s its magic.

Can you be happy and feel sadness, or grief, or disappointment at the same time?

The question seems ludicrous on its face, and the answer an obvious “Of course not!”

If happiness were merely a mood or an emotion, that would be true.  You can’t feel two emotions at once any more than you can simultaneously think two thoughts.

But genuine happiness is more than a passing feeling.  It’s an orientation toward life, a state of being in which you find yourself anchored regardless of the temporary circumstances that you experience as time flows past.

It’s a kind of trust in the ultimate goodness of life, a faith of sorts that even when the foreground of our lives feels tangled and blue, beneath it, there’s a light and a purpose supporting us.  It’s an experiential knowing that when the trials run their course, the light and purpose will once again shine through, showing us how the trials have enriched and strengthened us.  And our light and purpose will seem even deeper and more beautiful because of them.

Happiness lets us keep faith in life.  It creates resilience and teaches us that in the balance, it’s all good.  Every bit of it.