Day 5 - 2015 How to Write an Acrostic Poem

Day 5 ~ Happy Easter ~ How to write an Acrostic poem #NationalPoetryMonth “30 poems in 30 days” ~ This is a common poetry form. School children use it all the time. 
 
ACROSTIC poem - you may already be quite familiar with them. You just write a word (place, event, holiday, feeling, person, month, whatever) down the left side of your paper and each line starts with that first letter. And you just go letter by letter creating line by line as you describe the thing (or person) that you wrote down the left hand side. 

You can do it with single words that begin with each letter or you can use each letter as the beginning letter of the word that you use in a sentence or a phrase.

Since it is EASTER SUNDAY – you might want to start with that – or the month of April or whatever else comes to mind. Enjoy!

 
A ________________________________

P ________________________________ 

R ________________________________ 

I ________________________________

L ________________________________

E _________________________________
A _________________________________
S _________________________________
T _________________________________
E _________________________________
R _________________________________

My examples are below this video, "Because He Lives" (#BecauseHeLives)

Here are two examples for the word Easter that I wrote today; one has only one word per line and the other has several words. Begin each line with a word or phrase that starts with the letter on that line.:

Everlasting 
Atonement 
Salvation 
Thankful 
Eternal 
Resurrection

   © 2015 Stephanie Abney 

Exquisite, His love for me 
Atoning for my foolish pride 
Salvation, a gift, freely given 
Thinking only of us, He 
Endured such agony 
Reclaiming us all

    © 2015 Stephanie Abney 

And here are a couple of acrostic poems about the month of April that I wrote a few years ago:

Anew
Perfect
Resurrection
Immortal
Life
   © 2011 Stephanie Abney 

A son of God
Perfect in every way
Reaches out to
Individuals because he
Loves us so

  © 2011 Stephanie Abney 

YOUR TURN!! You certainly don’t need to use Easter or April – these are just examples – use any word or the name of a person that you wish! Enjoy!!

Happy Sabbath!

Live in Daily Thanksgiving

Thessalonians 5: 18 “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” (Holy Bible, KJV)

Alma 34:38 “… and take upon you the name of Christ; that you humble yourselves even to the dust, and worship God, in whatsoever place ye may be in, in spirit and in truth; and that ye live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you.” (Book of Mormon)

 

From two scriptural sources we can read that the Lord is counting on us to give thanks daily, for every single thing, good or bad. Hmmm. How are you doing with that one? Been complaining lately? Life is often hard, there’s no escaping that fact. It’s usually inconvenient; but when all is said and done, it’s still amazingly wonderful.

I’ve lived a long time (and I hope I’ll be of sound mind and health to live a lot longer – I’m pretty fond of waking up every day). Two very important things I have learned along the way is that first, we’re not in charge. And second, we need to GET OUT OF THE WAY!!! The Lord sees things from the beginning to the end. He knows what will bring us growth, joy, benefit … even if we don’t see it at the time. He can do a lot more with our lives than we can if we were left in charge. We just need to be grateful for the lessons that come and the results they bring. If it’s still hard, then He isn’t done yet and we need to be patient and long-suffering.

It’s easy to be grateful for the good things; the beauty of the earth, wonderful people and opportunities in our lives, food on the table, a roof over our heads and gas in the car, just to name a few blessings. But it’s dang hard to be grateful for health challenges, terminal illnesses, difficult people, lack of anything, accidents, lost homes or jobs; in fact, loss of any kind. It’s difficult to be grateful when our feelings have been hurt or worse. In either instance, there are lessons to be learned. We learn from both abundance and lack, from success and failure and learning to take things as they come, with a grateful heart makes the tough stuff a little easier to deal with.

I need to work on this. I suspect most people do. I only bring it up because these are the verses and thoughts that came to my mind when I wondered what I should write about for Day 2 of blogging every day in November. I didn’t choose a “gratitude” blog for the month – although it’s a great idea – I just was hoping to post something of worth (for myself and hopefully for anyone reading this) every day. So, there you have it. A grateful heart … NO matter what. What do you think?

Marriage is a gift to make us holy

The Lord is always ready and willing to teach us something... are we just as ready and willing to learn? Sometimes the lessons come in the most unexpected places. For example:

Jim and I went to a wedding on Saturday ~ Troy and Lynda ~ They are not of our faith. It was held in a Lutheran Church. As a life-long member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints, I always find non-temple, non-LDS wedding ceremonies interesting; many I have observed are very sweet - not the same as the eternal blessings pronounced in the temple, but sweet, nonetheless. This was such a wedding. I sat there enjoying the ceremony and the priest said a couple of rather profound things. One thing he said was that marriage was not given to us to make us happy. Rather, marriage is a gift from God to make us holy… and that would make us happy.

A typical definition of holy is “dedicated or devoted to the service of God.” I really like that. In marriage, if we strive to become holy, then happiness is a natural progression. It makes sense. We are told in scripture that “Men [and women] are, that they might have joy.” It also says in Mosiah 2:41 (one of my favorite scriptures): “… consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.”

I can’t think of a better “gift” than one that would make us holy and prepare us for an eternity of happiness with our eternal companions. And marriage is a pretty good place to get the prickles and rough spots rubbed right off of ya’. Just something to ponder on. Take care.