What You Will Be

As I gazed up at the mountains, I was awed by their majesty;

I bowed my head and asked myself, "Why should He care for me?

I am not great like the mountains that tower so high above,

What is there about me that God can find to love?"

"Father, I am not strong like the wind that makes your tall trees sway,

I cannot sing sweetly like your birds; will you love me anyway?

But most of all, I am simply me, and often have cause to fear,

In spite of all my weaknesses, do you promise to be near?"

With eyes closed tight against my tears, I wished He could hear me pray.

Then I felt His Spirit tell me, "Child, look up, I have something tosay.

"You are simply you, the spirit I love, a part of my great plan.

I put you here to learn of life and to return to me again."

"You are more beautiful to me than the loveliest mountain I made,

And your strength exceeds that of the wind's, so do not be afraid.

I love you not for what you are, but for what I know you will be.

I am always beside you watching you grow, you are very special to me."

A smile touched my lips - I knew it was true, my Father had always been there.

Giving me comfort and blessings and love and my own special talents toshare.

So I do my best to make Him proud. I am not afraid, for you see,

He loves me not for what I am, but for what He knows I will be.

Forgiveness

On June 8, 1972, a nine-year-old Vietnamese girl, her clothes flaming due to gasoline bombs, fled the American-led assault on her village of Trang Bang. With her eyes screwed shut and her mouth spread wide in a scream of pain, she was captured on film in America’s most remembered Vietnam wartime photo. 

In Officer John Plummer’s nightmares, this picture flashed huge, in black and white, to a sound track of children screaming. His order had directed bombers to shower Kim Phuc’c village with the chemical explosives.  For years, guilt over destroying and maiming the villagers haunted the officer.  Women and alcohol were his choice of escape. 

Twenty years after the destruction of the village, officer Plummer asked Christ to take control of his life, unleashing God’s ultimate power to end guilt. Although free from guilt, he carried inside himself scars somehow linked to the thick, white scars on the neck, arm, and back of the now-grown Vietnamese girl. Six years later, Plummer knew he needed to find her.  In an effort to meet her face-to-face, he tracked her down while she was visiting America. 

Unlike the June 1972 event, no photographer captured the moment when Plummer explained to Kim Phuc who he was. But in the middle of a busy sidewalk, the soldier, now 49 years old, and the child, now 33 years old, embraced. “She just opened her arms to me,” Plummer later said. “I fell into her arms sobbing. All I could say is, I’m so sorry. I’m just so sorry.” “ It’s all right,” she replied as she patted Plummer’s back. “I forgive. I forgive.” 

Nothing you’ve ever done is too bad to ask forgiveness for. And with God, it’s never too late to ask for forgiveness. God waits patiently for you to come to Him and to ask forgiveness for your sins. Because of what Christ has done for us, God “is faithful and just to forgive us, and to cleanse us from our sins” (1 John 1:9).  That’s the only way we can have the peace that accompanies freedom from sin. 

And when God has forgiven us, we are then able to forgive others, and to seek forgiveness from those we have wronged. Jesus taught us to forgive so that we might also be forgiven (Luke 6:37). When we forgive and seek forgiveness, we allow our memories to be healed and we demonstrate the forgiveness that we have received from God.

-Edited from Still More Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks by Wayne R

F A M I L Y

I ran into a stranger as he passed by, 

"Oh excuse me please" was my reply. 

He said, "Please excuse me too; 

I wasn't watching for you." 

We were very polite, this stranger and I. 

We went on our way and we said goodbye. 

But at home a different story is told, 

How we treat our loved ones, young and old. 

Later that day, cooking the evening meal, 

My son stood beside me very still. 

When I turned, I nearly knocked him down. 

"Move out of the way," I said with a frown. 

He walked away, his little heart broken. 

I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken. 

While I lay awake in bed, 

God's still small voice came to me and said, 

"While dealing with a stranger, common courtesy you use, 

but the family you love, you seem to abuse.. 

Go and look on the kitchen floor, 

You'll find some flowers there by the door. 

Those are the flowers he brought for you. 

He picked them himself: pink, yellow and blue. 

He stood very ! quietly not to spoil the surprise, 

you never saw the tears that filled his little eyes." 

By this time, I felt very small, 

And now my tears began to fall. 

I quietly went and knelt by his bed; 

"Wake up, little one, wake up," I said. 

"Are these the flowers you picked for me?" 

He smiled, "I found 'em, out by the tree. 

I picked 'em because they're pretty like you. 

I knew you'd like 'em, especially the blue." 

I said, "Son, ! I'm very sorry for the way I acted today; 

I shouldn't have yelled at you that way." 

He said, "Oh, Mom, that's okay. 

I love you anyway." 

I said, "Son, I love you too, 

and I do like the flowers, especially the blue." 

FAMILY Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family we left behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives. 

And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than into our own family, an unwise investment indeed, don't you think? 

So what is behind the story? 

The smell of rain

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. Still groggy from surgery, her husband David held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news.

That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency cesarean to deliver the couple's new daughter, Danae Lu Blessing.

At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound and nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. "I don't think she's going to make it," he said, as kindly as he could. "There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one."

Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Danae would likely face if she survived. She would never walk; she would never talk; she would probably be blind; she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation; and on and on.

"No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away.

Through the dark hours of morning as Danae held onto life by the thinnest thread. Diana slipped in and out of drugged sleep, growing more and more determined that their tiny daughter would live and live to be a healthy, happy young girl. But David, fully awake and listening to additional dire details of their daughter's chances of ever leaving the hospital alive, much less healthy, knew he must confront his wife with the inevitable.

"David walked in and said that we needed to talk about making funeral arrangements," Diana remembers, "I felt so bad for him because he was doing everything, trying to include me in what was going on, but I just wouldn't listen, I couldn't listen.

I said, "No, that is not going to happen, no way! I don't care what the doctors say. Danae is not going to die! One day she will be just fine, and she will be coming home with us!"

As if willed to live by Diana's determination, Danae clung to life hour after hour, with the help of every medical machine and marvel her miniature body could endure but as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Danae's underdeveloped nervous system was essentially "raw", the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort - so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love. All they could do, as Danae struggled alone beneath the ultra-violet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl. There was never a moment when Danae suddenly grew stronger. But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there.

At last, when Danae turned two months old, her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time. And two months later though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero.

Danae went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted. Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She shows no signs, whatsoever, of any mental or physical impairments. Simply, she is everything a little girl can be and more but that happy ending is far from the end of her story.

One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Danae was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ball park where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing. As always, Danae was chattering non-stop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent.

Hugging her arms across her chest, Danae asked, "Do you smell that?"

Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, "Yes, it smells like rain."

Danae closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?"

Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet, it smells like rain."

Still caught in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, "No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest."

Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Danae then happily hopped down to play with the other children.

Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along.

During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Danae on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.

-- Author Unknown

The Buzzard, The Bat & The Bumblebee

The Buzzard:

If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8 feet and is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of 10 to 12 feet. Without space to run, as is its habit, it will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top.

The Bat:

The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkable nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.

The Bumblebee:

A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.

People:

In many ways, we are like the buzzard, the bat, and the bumblebee. We struggle about with all our problems and frustrations, never realizing that all we have to do is look up! That's the answer, the escape route and the solution to any problem! Just look up!

Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, but faith looks up!

Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, and trust in our Creator who loves us.

-- Author Unknown 

The Perfect Mistake

My Mother's father worked as a carpenter. On this particular day, he was building some crates for the clothes his church was sending to orphanages in China. On his way home, he reached into his shirt pocket to find his glasses, but they were gone. When he mentally replayed his earlier actions, he realized what had happened; the glasses had slipped out of his pocket unnoticed and fallen into one of the crates, which he had nailed shut. His brand new glasses were heading for China!

The Great Depression was at it's height and Grandpa had six children. He had spent $20 for those glasses that very morning. He was upset by the thought of having to buy another pair. "It's not fair," he told God as he drove home in frustration. "I've been very faithful in giving of my time and money to your work, and now this."

Months later, the director of the orphanage was on furlough in the United States. He wanted to visit all the churches that supported him in China, so he came to speak one Sunday at my grandfather's small church in Chicago. The missionary began by thanking the people for their faithfulness in supporting the orphanage. "But most of all," he said, "I must thank you for the glasses you sent last year. You see, the Communists had just swept through the orphanage, destroying everything, including my glasses. I was desperate. Even if I had the money, there was simply no way of replacing those glasses. Along with not being able to see well, I experienced headaches every day, so my coworkers and I were much in prayer about this. Then your crates arrived. When my staff removed the covers, they found a pair of glasses lying on top.

The missionary paused long enough to let his words sink in. Then, still gripped with the wonder of it all, he continued: "Folks, when I tried on the glasses, it was as though they had been custom made just for me! I want to thank you for being a part of that."

The people listened, happy for the miraculous glasses. But the missionary surely must have confused their church with another, they thought. There were no glasses on their list of items to be sent overseas. But sitting quietly in the back, with tears streaming down his face, an ordinary carpenter realized the Master Carpenter had used him in an extraordinary way.

There are times we want to blame God instead of thanking him! Perhaps it is something we ought to try more often, "Thank you God for not allowing my car to start this morning." He may have been saving your life from a car accident. "Lord Jesus, thank you for letting me lose my glasses; I'm sure they'll be put to good use or there is a lesson to be learned."

-- Author Unknown

I MAY NEVER SEE TOMORROW

I may never see tomorrow 

There's no written guarantee 

And things that happened yesterday 

Belong to history.

I cannot predict the future 

I cannot change the past 

I have just the present moment 

I must treat it as my last.

I must use the moment wisely 

For it soon will pass away 

And be lost to me forever 

As part of yesterday.

I must exercise compassion 

Help the fallen to their feet 

Be a friend unto the friendless 

Make an empty life complete.

The unkind things I do today 

May never be undone. 

Any friendships that I fail to win 

May nevermore be won.

I may not have another chance 

On bended knee to pray, 

And I thank God with humble heart 

For giving me this day.

-- Author Unknown