Let us gather up the sunbeams

If We Knew

If we knew the woe and heartache

Waiting for us down the road,

If our lips could taste the wormwood,

If our backs could feel the load,

Would we waste the day in wishing

For a time that ne’er can be?

Would we wait in such impatience

For our ships to come from sea?

If we knew the baby fingers

Pressed against the windowpane

Would be cold and stiff tomorrow —

Never trouble us again —

Would the bright eyes of our darling

Catch the frown upon our brow?

Would the print of rosy fingers

Vex us then as they do now?

Ah! these little ice-cold fingers —

How they point our memories back

To the hasty words and actions

Strewn along our backward track!

How these little hands remind us, 

As in snowy grace they lie,

Not to scatter thorns - but roses - 

For our reaping by and by.

Strange we never prize the music

Till the sweet-voiced bird has flown;

Strange that we should slight the violets

Till the lovely flowers are gone;

Strange that summer skies and sunshine

Never seem one half so fair

As when the winter’s snowy pinions

Shake their white down in the air!

Lips from which the seal of silence

None but God can roll away,

Never blossomed in such beauty

As adorns the mouth today;

And sweet words that freight our memory

With their beautiful perfume,

Come to us in sweeter accents

Through the portals of the tomb.

Let us gather up the sunbeams

Lying all around our path;

Let us keep the wheat and roses,

Casting out the thorns and chaff;

Let us find our sweetest comfort

In the blessings of today,

With a patient hand removing

All the briars from the way.

May Riley Smith

from The Best Loved Poems of the American people

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Sisters in the Lord...let us live for Him today. 
No matter what issues are in our lives which bother us, 
let us choose to look up to Him,
 for it is in Him we will find His comfort and the strength to go on.

All glory to God!