Praise the LORD, O my soul

a folk art painting from the archives ...


Rosy Morning ©2005 Karen Mathison Schmidt
10 x 10 • acrylic on wood
private collection • Malvern, Pennsylvania

This one that I painted and sold a few years ago has a particularly folk kind of feel to it. I thought the title was especially appropriate for today.

My husband came through his surgery this morning with flying colors, and is recovering well. He still has a few more days in the hospital, and I’m spending most of the time during the day there with him. I’m toying with the idea of bringing my paints tomorrow and working on my current painting there. We’ll see!

Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

PSALM 103:1-5

Unexpected Blessings

Psalm 103: 1-2

Bless the LORD, O my soul,
And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits

This one is almost finished, I think. Some more work on the foreground, maybe soften up the background a little more ...

Shortly after I started working on our house last summer, I found a wonderful book of daily devotional readings selected by Mary W. Tileston, Daily Strength for Daily Needs, first published in 1884. I’ve grown to love this little volume; I wanted to share with you all what I just read from it. This is actually the reading for August 6, but this morning I was overcome with the urge to put it in my blog, which makes me think that maybe somebody out there needs this today – I was really blessed by it!

Into all our lives, in many simple, familiar, homely ways, God infuses this element of joy from the surprises of life, which unexpectedly brighten our days, and fill our eyes with light. He drops this added sweetness into His children's cup, and makes it to run over. The success we were not counting on, the blessing we were not trying after, the strain of music in the midst of drudgery, the beautiful morning picture or sunset glory thrown in as we pass to or from our daily business, the unsought word of encouragement or expression of sympathy, the sentence that meant for us more than the writer or speaker thought, – these and a hundred others that every one’s experience can supply are instances of what I mean. You may call it accident or chance – it often is; you may call it human goodness – it often is; but always, always call it God’s love, for that is always in it. These are the overflowing riches of His grace, these are His free gifts.

S. Longfellow

I hope you are blessed by reading this as I was. My prayer today and every day is that God would grant me the privilege of using me as His instrument to express to someone in my path “the unsought word of encouragement or expression of sympathy, the sentence that meant for us more than the writer or speaker thought.”

I pray the help of His Holy Spirit to keep this uppermost in my thoughts as I go about my Saturday!