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Three things in human life are important.
The first is to be kind.
The second is to be kind.
And the third is to be kind.
~Henry James

Such A Time As This

Why did I walk through the valley
Why was I forced to my knees
Why did the sun parch and dry me
When I walked through the desert of defeat
Then came the clouds and the rain fell
I thought I'd never make it through the night
Then God gave me the answer when I prayed with you
He let me see the dark to hold the light.
I can kneel with a brother who is bearing a burden
And say I know just what you're going through
I can pray with a sister in the midst of her sorrow
And say I know because I've been there too
I can put my arms around someone who is down
And tell them to have faith and confidence
What in pain I could not see I now fully believe
God prepared me for such a time as this
You may be praying for rescue
Facing temptation and trial
Struggles are endlessly present
But the purpose is somewhere in God's time
Just keep on walking the good road
The night leads to a stronger, wiser day
Then when you're asked the reason for the path you have trod
You'll know without a doubt, and you can say
I can kneel with a brother who is bearing a burden
And say I know just what you're going through
I can pray with a sister in the midst of her sorrow
And say I know because I've been there too
I can put my arms around someone who is down
And tell them to have faith and confidence
What in pain I could not see I now fully believe
God prepared me for such a time as this
~Jeff R. Steele and Cindi Ballard made popular by Lordsong

The only thing that you can carry with you on your travels is your heart.
So fill your heart with good things and good things will follow you for the rest of your life.
~Scott Murray

The Quilt

As I faced my Maker at the last Judgement,
I knelt before the Lord along with the other souls.
Before each of us laid our lives,
like the squares of a quilt, in many piles.
An Angel sat before each of us sewing our quilt squares
together into a tapestry that is our life.
But, as my Angel took each piece of cloth off the pile,
I noticed how ragged and empty each of my squares was.
They were filled with giant holes.
Each square was labeled with a part of my life that had been difficult,
the challenges and temptations I was faced with in everyday life.
I saw hardships that I had endured,
which were the largest holes of all.
I glanced around me. Nobody else had such squares.
Other than a tiny hole here and there,
the other tapestries were filled with rich color
and the bright hues of worldly fortune.
I gazed upon my own life and was disheartened.
My Angel was sewing the ragged pieces of cloth together,
threadbare and empty, like binding air.
Finally the time came when each life was to be displayed,
held up to the light, the scrutiny of truth.
The others rose, each in turn, holding up their tapestries.
So filled their lives had been.
My Angel looked upon me, and nodded for me to rise.
My gaze dropped to the ground in shame.
I hadn't had all the earthly fortunes.
I had love in my life, and laughter.
But there had also been trials of illness and death,
and false accusations that took from me my world as I knew it.
I had to start over many times.
I often struggled with the temptation to quit,
only to somehow muster the strength to pick up and begin again.
I had spent many nights on my knees in prayer,
asking for help and guidance in my life.
I had often been held up to ridicule, which I endured painfully;
each time offering it up to the Father in hopes that I would not melt
within my skin beneath the judgmental gaze
of those who unfairly judged me.
And now, I had to face the truth.
My life was what it was, and I had to accept it for what it had been.
I rose and slowly lifted the combined squares of my life to the light.
An awe-filled gasp filled the air.
I gazed around at the others who stared at me with eyes wide.
Then, I looked upon the tapestry before me.
Light flooded the many holes, creating an image.
The face of Christ.
Then our Lord stood before me, with warmth and love in His eyes.
He said, "Every time you gave over your life to Me,
it became My life, My hardships, and My struggles.
Each point of light in your life is when
you stepped aside and let Me shine through,
until there was more of Me than there was of you."
May all our quilts be threadbare and worn,
allowing Christ to shine through.

Think With Your Heart

Close your eyes
To see with your heart.
Close your ears
To hear with your heart.
Forget your mind
And think with your heart.
For your heart will see
When your eyes fail,
And your heart will hear
When the voices are confused,
Your heart has the answers
When your mind falls short.
Remember your heart
For it is the key to love.
Remember all love
For love is the key to your soul.
Remember your soul
For it is your Foundation.
~Author unknown

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude to me is more important than facts.
We cannot change our past.
We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.
We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude.
I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
And so it is with you.
We are in charge of our attitudes.
~Charles Swindoll

Read whatever chapter of Scripture you will,
and be ever so delighted with it --
yet it will leave you as poor, as empty and unchanged as it found you
unless it has turned you wholly and solely to the Spirit of God,
and brought you into full union with and dependence upon Him.
~William Law (1686-1761)

There is many a one whose eye is awake
but whose heart is asleep.
What, in truth, should be seen
by the eyes of creatures of water and clay?
The one who keeps her heart awake,
though the eye of her head may sleep,
her heart will open a hundred eyes.
~Jelaluddin Rumi

The most important thing about a man is what he believes in the depth of his being.
This is the thing that makes him what he is, the thing that organizes him and feeds him;
the thing that keeps him going in the face of untoward circumstances;
the thing that gives him resistance and drive.
~Hugh Stevenson Tigner

Don't be afraid your life will end: be afraid that it will never begin.
~Grace Hansen

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.
~Helen Keller

Peace and war begin at home.
If we truly want peace in the world,
let us begin by loving one another in our own families.
If we want to spread joy, we need for every family to have joy.
~Mother Teresa

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it,
bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900 - 1944)

*Poems, quotes and graphics on this page were from the internet and no express permission for use was asked for on the net. Background and most graphics on this page are by Country Heart Designs, whose web page I have linked to. Thank you Jan! Please check out her beautiful artistic work by clicking on her link button. If any of these poems, quotes or graphics are yours, please let me know and I will be glad to give proper credit to you on this web page, or remove them entirely, if you so wish. Thanks!*

The Man In The Glass

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say
For it isn't your father or mother or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass
You may be like Jack Horner and chisel a plum
And think you're a wonderful guy.
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.
He's the fellow to please - never mind all the rest,
For he's with you clear to the end.
And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass.
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you've cheated the man in the glass.
~Author Unknown

The Lord is my strength and my song.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life:
the longing for love, the search for knowledge,
and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither,
in a wayward course, over the ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love first, because it brings ecstasy -
ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy.
I have sought it next because it relieves loneliness -
that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over
the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss.
I have sought it finally, because in the union of love, I have seen in mystic miniature,
the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined.
This is what I have sought and though it might seem,
too good for human life, at last, I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of men.
I have wished to know why the stars shine and I have tried to apprehend
the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway over the flux.
A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible,
led upwards to the heavens, but always pity brought me back to earth.
Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart.
Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors,
helpless old people a hated burden to their sons,
and the whole world of loneliness,
poverty and pain make a mockery out of what human life should be.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I can not, and I too suffer.
This has been my life, I have found it worth living,
and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
~Bertrand Russell

"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish his work."
~John 4:34