I can hear birds through our open window in the living room. The significance of that statement is not the birds, but the open window. Yes! The weather is fine enough today to throw wide open the window and revel in the fresh air. Wherever you are, I hope you having an open window day, too.

It’s time to do some catch-up in the Commonplace Book, to run back through the pages and choose some quotes that got overlooked the first time around. Let them languish in obscurity no longer.

It is a greater mercy to descend from
praying parents than from nobles.
John Flavel

Don’t take for granted those praying parents of yours. And if you didn’t have them, thank God for His grace: He brought you thus far anyway.

People sometimes ask me, “How did you get rid of your feelings?” I tell them: “I didn’t get rid of them. I offer them to God, and I have to offer them again, and again, and again.
Elisabeth Elliot

Easier said than done, but better that than storing them up and becoming bitter.

If you ask, “Why is this happening?” no light may come, but if you ask “How am I to glorify God now?” there will always be an answer.
J.I. Packer

Two very different questions; only one brings light.

Christian contentment is the direct fruit of having no higher ambition than to belong to the Lord and to be entirely at His disposal.
Alistair Begg

I’d like to remember this when discontent rises up in my soul.

I played the notes as they were written,
but it was God who made the music.
Don’t cry for me –
I am going to where the music was born.
J.S. Bach

I love that!

Don’t cry for this post – it goes to where blog posts are born…in the morning.

The sun is setting on the last day in March of 2026. What will April of 2026 bring? Warmer weather, longer days, travels to visit loved ones… But the best thing that April brings this year is that glorious day when we cry out to one another “He is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” I cannot fathom where I would be without knowing Christ as risen Lord. I cannot.

Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world: It is not he who prays most or fasts most, it is not he who gives most alms or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice, but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it.
William Law

I am not there yet, but it is something to strive for, isn’t it?

Our contentment does not consist in getting the thing we desire, but in God’s fashioning our spirits to our conditions.
Jeremiah Burroughs

Don’t you think that Jeremiah B. and William L. are probably having a good chat right now in heaven?

It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
C.S. Lewis

You knew it was time to roll out some C. S. Lewis again, right? Read that quote a few times and ask yourself if you’ve just been playing at making mud pies when you could be on holiday at the sea. INFINITE JOY.

If my life is fruitless,
it doesn’t matter who praises me.
And if it’s fruitful,
it doesn’t matter who criticizes me.
John Bunyan

I am far too concerned with what other people think of me, than I am concerned with whether or not my life is bearing fruit.

There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship
than a mutual taste in literature.
P.G. Wodehouse

So, have you read Wooster and Jeeves? If so, we might have a foundation for a beautiful friendship.

Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.

I’ll use this post for making mud pies in the morning.

I don’t think we have a speck of Irish in our ancestry, but that does not keep us from observing the day with some corned beef and cabbage. If good Saint Patrick knew what the day commemorating his death turned out to be, he’d want to start banishing snakes again.

And now, for some quotes to feed your souls:

God alone spreads out the heavens,
and treads on the waves of the sea.
Job 9:8

I’ve been reading through Job again; it’s a very poetic book filled with little jewels like that one.

In the absence of any other truth,
the thumb alone would convince me
of God’s existence.
Sir Isaac Newton

And Newton was no slouch when it came to scientific thought. Consider the design and utility of your thumb and praise the One who made it.

Imagination bodies forth
the forms of things unknown,
the poet’s pen turns them into shapes
and gives to airy nothing
a local habitation and a name.
William Shakespeare

Just look at what Tolkien did in creating the world of Middle Earth and its inhabitants and languages. From airy nothing, he gave us hobbits, the Mines of Moria, Gandalf and Frodo.

A house with daffodils in it
is a house lit up,
whether or not the sun be shining outside.
A.A. Milne

There were small bunches of daffodils on sale at the grocery store this morning. I looked at them and thought about getting some but did not. Today would have been a good day to have a house lit up by daffodils. So ours got lit up by carrots instead:

Faith and begorrah, I might have to delete this in the morn!

Day three of adjusting to daylight savings time. I enjoy having the days be lighter later, but I have to work through the five stages of grieving over that missing hour.

On the plus side, I’ve had a tremendous break-through in trying to figure out how to print out a book using the “book fold” option in Microsoft Word. Since I am often an alien and stranger when it comes to journeys through the tech world, this is no small feat.

Let’s get to it, friends – the quotes for the week!

The truth has no defense
against a fool determined to believe a lie.
Mark Twain

For proof, just take a stroll through social media. There’s nothing new under the sun – this has been going on since Satan made a fool out of Eve. God’s grace is the only cure.

A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.
Welsh Proverb

And if I may paraphrase, an embryo hidden in the heart of the womb is a person invisible.

Faith is the radar that sees through the fog.
Corrie Ten Boom

There’s a lot of fog in this world. Praise God for giving us faith to see through it.

All knees shall bow to thee
All wits shall rise
And praise Him who did make
and mend our eyes.
George Herbert

Ah, I love that so much. He made our eyes and in Christ, He mends them.

It must be a great disappointment to God
if we are not dazzled
at least ten times a day.
Mary Oliver

Don’t disappoint God today.

If you’re not dazzled by this post, out it goes in the morning.

I went out at sunset in search of the blood moon. Alas, I had not done my research. It was actually supposed to be visible this morning. That’s the bad news. The “good” news is that it was too cloudy here to see it this morning anyway.

Here are a few quotes for you to ponder with me.

Sooner or later,
everyone sits down to a
banquet of consequences.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Have you had one of those banquets lately?

Nothing touches our lives but it is God Himself speaking. Do we discern His hand or only mere occurrence? Get into the habit of saying, “Speak, Lord,” and life will become a romance. Every time circumstances press, say “Speak, Lord,” and make time to listen.
Oswald Chambers

Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.

Worry often gives a small thing a great shadow.
Swedish Proverb

Isn’t it the truth?

Three can keep a secret
if two of them are dead.
Benjamin Franklin

Ha ha! That’s very droll.

The world is full of poems,
but you have to be quiet to hear them.
Mary Oliver

I love that so much. Here’s a poem for you, but make sure you’re quiet enough to hear it:

I’ll be deleting this by the light of the Blog Moon in the morning.

The world is sunny and beautiful outside today, cold weather and bare branches notwithstanding. Isn’t it amazing what a difference the sun makes? Light always trumps the dark.

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
Ephesians 5:8-11

If you’re still in the darkness, turn your gaze to the Light. You know Who I mean.

Modesty is always beautiful.
G.K. Chesterton

I agree with G.K. Do you?

“God is too good to be unkind
and He is too wise to be mistaken.
And when we cannot trace His hand,
we must trust His heart.
Charles Spurgeon

Such good words to tuck away when we are reeling from some difficulty and “cannot trace His hand.” We can always trust His heart.

You owe it to all of us to get on with what you’re good at.
W.H. Auden

This almost felt like a bracing cup of cold water thrown in my sometimes insecure and unconfident face. Get on with it!

Let nothing be said about anyone
unless it passes through the three sieves:
Is it true?
Is it kind?
It is necessary?
Amy Carmichael

The psalmist said, “Set a guard O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips.” (Psalm 141:3). And let me always use these three sieves!

I’ll delete this in the morning unless it passes through the three sieves.