TJ Quotations Worth Quoting

Do you ever shop at Trader Joe’s? We find shopping there to be refreshing and never stressful.  I always look at their greeting cards, which are only $1:00 each.  Here are a few TJ quotations that truly can bless:

 Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy:

they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

 Marcel Proust.  

On this card, red-orange and yellow, fanciful flowers surround a watering can on which a blue and yellow-orange bird is perched.  An excellent thought (with a few mental qualifications of what it means to make someone happy in a healthy way) combined with a pleasant visual. Causes me to smile and relax and think of good friends.

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore.

Andre Gide

The earth has music for those who listen.  

George Santayana

Thank you. What a difference you make.

I wish you joy!

Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the acting in spite of it.

Mark Twain

On the cover of a wordless card, two young girls play on the white sands of a bright beach. A little, chubby, blond girl, maybe 3 1/2 years old dressed in a white dress with red sweater and white bow in her hair holds her little bucket while watching her big sister pick up sea shells. A few other children play in the distance closer to the rolling tides. The picture shimmers. My eyes tell my heart to trust God with His world and to be still.

A birthday card displaying colorful cakes, one chocolate and one coconut white with pink roses atop, offers these words on the inside:

Wishing you the most scrumptious day ever!

I like to think that days and attitudes and relationships can be scrumptious, not just food!  How yummy!

Here is my last TJ’s greeting card quotation.  Two auburn brown horses are feeding in a green field with an orchard of blossoming trees behind them.

Not what we give, but what we share. For the gift without the giver is bare.

James Russell Lowell

J. R. L. knew this was true by experience, and so do we.  It is also the declaration of the Gospel.

The Gospel of Jesus — this is the story of God who has given and given since creation. The existence of everything is untold giving.  The Great Giver has also given us Himself — Emmanuel, God with us.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son,

so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

John 3:16

The Giver continues to give Himself. I want to give myself, continually, back to Him.  And I want to share what He has given me with you and others. What do I have that hasn’t been given??  Loving full circle is the greatest, endless gift.

Thus, we return to the Marcel Proust quotation, our first quotation:

 Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy:

they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

 I’m grateful to God – The Giver, who started this whole trajectory of giving through creating, sowing, and allowing our souls to reap His goodness.  

He is the Charming Gardener.