You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you. —Maya Angelou
Life is tragic for those who have plenty to live on and nothing to live for.—Author unknown If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can’t buy.—Author unknown Wealth consists not in having great possessions but in having few wants.—Epicurus A man’s bank account doesn’t indicate whether he is rich or poor. It is the heart that makes a man rich. A man is rich according to what he is, not according to what he has.—Henry Ward Beecher It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.—Bertrand Russell Money often costs too much. —Ralph Waldo Emerson Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil.—Henry Fielding You have not lived a perfect day, even though you have earned your money, unless you have done something for someone who will never be able to repay you. —Ruth Smeltzer Blessed are those who can give without remembering and receive without forgetting. —Princess Elizabeth Bibesco
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Quote of the day:
"The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.” -- John Burroughs Think about it: Once upon a time two brothers who lived on adjoining farms fell into conflict. It was the first serious rift in 40 years of farming side by side, sharing machinery, and trading labor and goods as needed without a hitch. Then the long collaboration fell apart. It began with a small misunderstanding and it grew into a major difference, and finally it exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by weeks of silence. One morning there was a knock on John’s door. He opened it to find a man with a carpenter’s toolbox. “I’m looking for a few days’ work” he said. “Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there. Could I help you?” “Yes,” said the older brother. “I do have a job for you. Look across the creek at that farm. That’s my neighbor, in fact, it’s my younger brother. Last week there was a meadow between us and he took his bulldozer to the river levee and now there is a creek between us. Well, he may have done this to spite me, but I’ll show him. See that pile of lumber curing by the barn? I want you to build me a fence—an 8-foot fence—so I won’t need to see his place anymore. Cool him down, anyhow.” The carpenter said, “I think I understand the situation. Show me the nails and the post-hole digger and I’ll be able to do a job that pleases you.” The older brother had to go to town for supplies, so he helped the carpenter get the materials ready and then he was off for the day. The carpenter worked hard all that day measuring, sawing, nailing. About sunset when the farmer returned, the carpenter had just finished his job. The farmer’s eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped. There was no fence there at all. It was a bridge—a bridge stretching from one side of the creek to the other! A fine piece of work, handrails and all—and the neighbor, his younger brother, was coming across, his hand outstretched. “You are quite a fellow to build this bridge after all I've said and done.” The two brothers met at the middle of the bridge, taking each others’ hand. They turned to see the carpenter hoist his toolbox on his shoulder. “No, wait! Stay a few days. I've got a lot of other projects for you,” said the older brother. “I’d love to stay on,” the carpenter said, “but I have so many more bridges to build.” Differences will often arise in human relationships, but building bridges of understanding and respect can overcome differences, and keep them from becoming large obstacles. The post office officials were much interested as they read the words written on an envelope which had just arrived from Japan. "To the man of God, ------, Monmouthshire, England." "Who can that be?" asked the sorting official; but his colleagues were unable to answer his question. Then one man exclaimed, "Well, it's not the parson, anyhow," and instantly they all agreed. The local clergyman did not fit the description. One by one, the names of the other ministers were mentioned; but in spite of the fact that several of these men were nice fellows and exceedingly popular, they did not fit the description on the envelope. The problem of delivering the letter was becoming acute, when rather abruptly a member of the staff said, "I know. Yes, I know who he is. He's odd Mr. -----. If any man in this town has earned the right to that title, he is the man." The listeners agreed, and he was deputed to take the letter to the man's house.
The old Christian marveled that the post office staff should think him worthy of such a compliment; but when he opened the letter, he discovered that their choice had been sound. The letter had been written to him by a Japanese student whom he had entertained months earlier. The young man had been studying in Wales, and had been received into the home of his new friend. When he returned to Japan, he desired to send a letter of appreciation; but alas, he had lost the address of his former host. However, that presented no problem, for he had gained the impression that he had stayed with a man of God. He smiled and was reassured, for in his own country, a man of God was known near and far. Surely this would be the case in other lands. Everybody would know the man of God, and if he addressed the letter in that fashion, it would reach its destination. It did; and in so doing, paid tribute to one whose consecrated service had charmed a community. One wonders what would happen if such a letter were addressed to the man of God--in my town. Would the postal officials think of me? Paul wrote in Philippians 1:20, 21, "...that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Paul's reference to the magnifying glass is most interesting, and its connection with "the man of God" is obvious. A magnifying glass does not actually increase the size of anything: It only seems to do this. Actually the object at which a man may be looking is exactly the same size, but the glass brings it into bold relief, and the watcher is able to see it more clearly. It is not possible to make Christ more wonderful, for "He is the altogether lovely One, and the chiefest among ten thousand." Yet, if by God's grace we can become magnifying glasses--in perfect alignment with the Master and men--they will be able to see Him more clearly when they look at Him through us. All the details of His superb glory may be brought into delightful relief if we are what we ought to be. Probably Paul had a similar thought in mind when he wrote, "Ye are living epistles, seen and read of all men." We read the Scriptures to learn more of Christ. Likewise, people read us in order to achieve identical results. The fact that the letter addressed to the man of God reached its destination, suggests that the honored Christian had been a magnifying glass. He had so magnified his Lord that even the people in the post office had been able to see Him. They had also read his everyday actions, and had recognized in them the presence of the Lord. The old man had been a living epistle of righteousness. And ever since my old pastor told that story, I have wistfully longed to reach that standard of holiness. It is the Christian's Mount Everest! The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.—Theodore Roosevelt
A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself—to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart. —Leo F. Buscaglia The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. —Carl Jung Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude. —William James When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. —Donald Miller They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. —Carl W. Buechner Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate. —Albert Schweitzer You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. —Dale Carnegie We can improve our relationships with others by leaps and bounds if we become encouragers instead of critics. —Joyce Meyer Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. —James Baldwin Quote of the day:
“Be like a postage stamp. Stick to it until you get there.”--Bob Proctor Think about it: In a factory, an elongated steel bar weighing 500 lb. (about 225 kg) was suspended by a chain. Near it‚ an average-size cork was suspended by a silk thread. “When we come back to this spot later,” a tour guide told a group of sightseers, “you will see something that is seemingly impossible. This cork will have set this steel bar in motion.” The guide set in motion a mechanism whereby the cork tapped gently and repeatedly against the steel bar, which remained motionless. The visitors watched for a minute or two as the cork struck the iron bar with pendulum like regularity, then they moved on. Ten minutes later, the bar was vibrating slightly, and when the tour group returned at the end of an hour, the heavy bar was swinging like the pendulum of a clock. So the next time you feel you aren’t even having a feather’s weight of effect, remember the cork. Often, people and situations don’t change overnight. But just keep tapping like another tap of the cork against the steel bar. It may not appear to make an immediate difference, but over time we will see how it has. Experienced guitar players know that it’s actually impossible to tune even the best-quality guitars to produce perfect pitch in every note and chord everywhere along the fret board. This is because of the nature of how guitars have been built for hundreds of years.
In typical guitars the traditional straight frets located intermittently along the fret board are not in the precise location required to produce perfect pitch everywhere along the fret board. This means that even if you tune a guitar precisely to sound perfectly in the chord E, it might sound out of tune while playing the chord G, or when playing the same E formation further up the fret board. This is true of other chords and notes as well. This is an annoyance that guitarists have to deal with and is one of the reasons that guitarists often retune their guitars between songs. Some guitarists tune some strings slightly out of tune in such a way as to strike a happy medium so that no matter what note or chord is played anywhere on the fret board, it’s close enough to perfect pitch to sound good enough overall. Some guitarists adjust tuning for optimum pitch for certain chord patterns which sound out of tune for other songs with differing chord patterns. One luthier (guitar maker) got so annoyed by constantly struggling with this inherent weakness in guitars that he decided to create a guitar that eliminated it altogether. The “true temperament guitar” with the crooked frets is what he came up with. He adjusted the frets by measuring precisely the position where each note has to be “fretted” in order to produce perfect pitch everywhere along the fret board no matter what note or chord is played. This resulted in the frets looking rather twisted or mangled. The result, however, is what users claim is a beautiful guitar that just “sings.” Of what significance is this to us? At first glance it would seem that the luthier had lost his mind to produce a guitar with such obviously misshapen frets. And yet the guitar produces a strikingly more harmonious sound than the so-called proper-looking guitar. Isn’t this so with us? With all our weaknesses and faults, we might feel imperfect and twisted like the frets of the true temperament guitar, but when in the hands of the master musician we can make beautiful melodies for Him. It’s when we believe ourselves to be so good and “straight” in our own righteousness, like normal guitars with their perfectly straight yet imperfect frets, that our sound can actually become slightly out of harmony and dissonant. God allows us to be just as imperfect as we are for a purpose, so that we are more useful and He gets the glory. No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can’t look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished? —Lee Iacocca
Spend time with those you love. One of these days, you will say either, “I wish I had,” or “I’m glad I did.” —Zig Ziglar In all my years of private practice, I've never heard one of my young clients mention “quality time.” All a child knows is that he wants your time and your attention, whether it’s to watch him do somersaults and cartwheels or to take him for a Big Mac. In trying to find time for your children, don’t worry too much about how much “quality” is in it. Give them all the time you can and the quality will take care of itself. —Kevin Leman Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your gold and good health have vanished. —Og Mandino The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it. Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now. —Leo Babauta We are always getting ready to live, but never living. —Ralph Waldo Emerson Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out. —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. The purpose of life is a life of purpose. —Robert Byrne If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life, and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. —Albert Camus When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. —Cherokee proverb Quote of the day:
“Remember every cloud has a silver lining.” – Author Unknown Think about it: I remember my mother often reminding us children to “look on the bright side” and “be thankful for the little things.” If we’d complain about the hot weather in mid-June, she’d point out, “At least we can go swimming, right?” If we’d complain about not having dessert one night, she’d ask, “Doesn't that make you thankful for the nights we do have dessert?” She tried to teach us to take every seemingly “bad” or “sad” situation we faced and look for something that we could appreciate or be happy about. She called this concept “looking for the silver lining.” According to the Oxford Online Dictionary, the English idiom “every cloud has a silver lining” means that every difficult or sad situation has a comforting or a more hopeful aspect, even though it may not be apparent immediately. Our family faced a “storm cloud” of sorts when a friend borrowed our vehicle while we were on vacation and totaled it. Then it seemed the insurance company might not process our claim, because our friend wasn't on our insurance plan. So you can imagine that we had a very hard time looking on the bright side of this situation. One day, after getting off the phone yet again with our insurance company, I was complaining to myself about our situation: the car, our bills, our health problems, and just about my general sorry lot in life. I then happened to glance over to the newspaper on my desk, and that’s when I saw that compared to so many, I have so, so much to be thankful for:
So, yes, losing our car wasn't easy, and being indebted in order to pay for the new one isn’t fun either, but no one said life would be a breeze. The next time I find myself in a tough situation, I’ll try to choose to thank God for the silver lining instead of questioning Him about the unpleasant things He’s allowed to happen. Quote of the day:
“My mother was the making of me. She was so true and so sure of me, I felt that I had someone to live for—someone I must not disappoint. The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me.” – Thomas Edison Think about it: A partially deaf boy came home one day carrying a note from officials at school. The note suggested that the parents take the boy out of school, claiming he was “too stupid to learn.” The boy’s mother read the note and said, “My son Tom isn’t too stupid to learn. I’ll teach him myself.” And so she did. When Tom died many years later, his country paid tribute to him by turning off the nation’s lights for one full minute. They did this to honor the man who invented the first practical light bulb. But that was not his only discovery. Thomas Edison (1847-1931) also invented motion pictures, the record player, and went on to patent over 1,000 other ground breaking inventions. Not all children become world changers as Thomas Edison did, but we can be sure that every child that has been raised by a godly and loving mother has the potential to be an influence for good in his or her own unique way. Edison’s mother certainly proved the adage true, “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world,” but in some way each mother does that as well. With this story we’d like to pay tribute to and encourage mothers—mothers who see the good and possibilities in their children that others cannot see; mothers who sacrifice of their time and strength each day to care for and pour love into their children; mothers who have the courage to give up their hopes and dreams to see them realized in their little ones; mothers who, in a world where simply being a mother is becoming less and less popular, are determined to make mothering their “career.” May God bless you, dear mothers! You truly are heroes of the greatest kind! Heaven lives at the feet of mothers. —The Hadith
The best medicine in the world is a mother’s kiss. —Anonymous Mama was my greatest teacher—a teacher of compassion, love, and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love. —Stevie Wonder, famous blind singer To a child’s ear, “mother” is magic in any language. —Arlene Benedict Youth fades, love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; a mother’s secret hope outlives them all. —Oliver Wendell Holmes A mother is the truest friend we have when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity, when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us, when troubles thicken around us, still she will cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts. — Washington Irving The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom. —Henry Ward Beecher The mother is a school If you prepare her properly, You will prepare an entire people of good character. The mother is the first teacher, The most important of them, And the best of them. —An Arab poet A little girl, when asked where her home was, replied, “where mother is.” —Keith L. Brooks All mothers are working mothers. —Author unknown |
AuthorThe goal of the blog is to provide interesting, motivational, soul feeding material. All to help remind us that God loves us all and wants a personal relationship with each of us and will take care of us in times of trouble. I aspire to be a force for good by providing you with positive input. I encourage you to share the blog with others. Archives
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