Love… in Sickness & in Health

The passengers on the bus watched sympathetically as the attractive young woman with the white cane made her way carefully up the steps. She paid the driver and, using her hands to feel the location of the seats, walked down the aisle and found the seat he’d told her was empty. Then she settled in, placed her briefcase on her lap and rested her cane against her leg. It had been a year since Susan, 34, became blind. Due to a medical misdiagnosis she had been rendered sightless, and she was suddenly thrown into a world of darkness, anger, frustration and self-pity. And all she had to cling to was her husband, Mark.

Mark was an Air Force officer and he loved Susan with all his heart. When she first lost her sight, he watched her sink into despair and was determined to help his wife gain the strength and confidence she needed to become independent again.

Finally, Susan felt ready to return to her job, but how would she get there? She used to take the bus, but was now too frightened to get around the city by herself. Mark volunteered to drive her to work each day, even though they worked at opposite ends of the city. At first, this comforted Susan, and fulfilled Mark’s need to protect his sightless wife who was so insecure about performing the slightest task. Soon, however, Mark realized the arrangement wasn’t working.

Susan is going to have to start taking the bus again, he admitted to himself. But she was still so fragile, so angry how would she react? Just as he predicted, Susan was horrified at the idea of taking the bus again. “I’m blind!” she responded bitterly. “How am I supposed to know where I am going? I feel like you’re abandoning me.”

Mark’s heart broke to hear these words, but he knew what had to be done. He promised Susan that each morning and evening he would ride the bus with her, for as long as it took, until she got the hang of it.

And that is exactly what happened. For two solid weeks, Mark, military uniform and all, accompanied Susan to and from work each day. He taught her how to rely on her other senses, specifically her hearing, to determine where she was and how to adapt to her new environment. He helped her befriend the bus drivers who could watch out for her, and save her a seat.

Finally, Susan decided that she was ready to try the trip on her own. Monday morning arrived, and before she left, she threw her arms around Mark, her temporary bus-riding companion, her husband, and her best friend. Her eyes filled with tears of gratitude for his loyalty, his patience, and his love. She said good-bye, and for the first time, they went their separate ways.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday… Each day on her own went perfectly, and Susan had never felt better. She was doing it! She was going to work all by herself.

On Friday morning, Susan took the bus to work as usual. As she was paying the fare to exit the bus, the driver said, “Boy, I sure do envy you. “

Susan wasn’t sure if the driver was speaking to her or not. After all, who on earth would ever envy a blind woman who had struggled just to find the courage to live for the past year? Curious, she asked the driver, “Why do you say that you envy me?”

The driver responded, “It must feel good to be taken care of and protected like you are.”

Susan had no idea what the driver was talking about, and again asked, “What do you mean?”

The driver answered, “You know, every morning for the past week, a fine-looking gentleman in a military uniform has been standing across the corner watching you as you get off the bus. He makes sure you cross the street safely and he watches until you enter your office building.

Then he blows you a kiss, gives you a little salute and walks away. You are one lucky lady.”

Special GPS

I saw one of those new Global Positioning System units today. Those are the ones that hook up to satellites to tell you where you are and what turn to take to get where you are going. It wasn’t in my car of course. Like a lot of men I prefer to go where the road takes me even if I do get lost once in a while. Some of my best times too have come when I have taken my old car on a wrong turn or down a road less traveled. I find that the scenery is always a bit more exciting too when everything isn’t mapped out for you.

In fact, life itself is full of wrong turns, missing maps, and frequent potholes. That is what makes it such an interesting drive. Thankfully, there is one GPS that we all can use when we find ourselves lost on this road of life. This GPS won’t give us a lighted map or step by step directions. It will, however, help us to make the right choices to get where we need to go. This GPS will even let us make a wrong turn if we want to, but it will always gently nudge us back to the right highway to take us home. This GPS is God’s love.

God’s love is always there to nurture us and guide us as we travel on. It is there to help us make every choice and decide on every turn. It is there to help us drive our lives down the right road and to enjoy the scenery along the way. It may even guide us off the highway at times to help a stranded motorist or pick up a lost hitchhiker. One thing is sure though. God’s love is always there to lead you home no matter how far you wandered off from His will.

Dannion Brinkley said that: "When love alone acts as your compass, your life is always right on course." I may never want a GPS telling me how to drive my car, but I will always welcome God and His love to guide me on how to drive my life. He may not always let me see the map, but I trust that He knows where we are going.

--Author Unknown

27 indications that we need revival

1. When we do not love Him as we once did.
2. When earthly interests and occupations are more important to us than eternal ones.
3. When we would rather watch TV and read secular books and magazines than read the Bible and pray.
4. When we have little or no desire for prayer.
5. When we would rather make money than give money.
6. When our Christianity is joyless and passionless.
7. When we know truth in our heads that we are not practicing in our lives.
8. When we make little effort to witness to the lost.
9. When we have time for sports, recreation, and entertainment, but not for Bible study and prayer.
10. When we do not tremble at the Word of God.
11. When we seldom think thoughts of eternity.
12. When we are more concerned about our jobs and careers than about the Kingdom of Christ and the salvation of the lost.
13. When Christian husbands and wives are not praying together.
14. When our children are growing up to adopt worldly values, secular philosophies and ungodly lifestyles.
15. When we watch things on TV and movies that we would not show in church.
16. When our prayers lack fervency.
17. When our hearts are cold and our eyes are dry.
18. When our singing is half-hearted and our worship lifeless.
19. When we aren't seeing regular evidence of the supernatural power of God.
20. When we are bored with worship.
21. When we are more concerned about what others think about us than what God thinks about us.
22. When we are making little or no difference in the secular world around us.
23. When we are unmoved by the thought of our neighbors, business associates and acquaintances going to hell.
24. When we have ceased to weep and mourn and grieve over our sin.
25. When we aren't exercising faith and believing God for the impossible.
26. When the fire has gone out in our hearts, our marriages and our church.
27. When we are blind to the extent of our need and don't think we need revival.

-- Author Unknown

THE STORY OF SOUL

There once was a man named Soul who was walking in a garden. He was whistling a real sweet tune for he was saved and had the joy of the Lord, but he was a baby Christian. As Soul was walking, a beautiful and seductive woman came out from behind a tree. Soul was very startled.

He said,"Hello, I'm Soul, what is your name?"

She replied, "I am Temptation, I have what you want."

"What do I want?" replied Soul.

"You want to do all things which are of the flesh," said Temptation.

Soul replied, "O.K., lead me."

So he and Temptation went off and fulfilled the desires of the flesh. When Soul returned to the garden, he met a man named Condemnation. Condemnation said, "Hey, I see you have met my friend, Temptation."

Soul said, "Yes, who are you?"

"I am Condemnation, I come after Temptation. We work hand-in-hand." Then Condemnation jumped on Soul's back and began to beat him. He hit him in the face and kicked him when he was down. This went on for several days.

On about the third day, a man named Mercy came running and said, "I command you, Condemnation, to stop beating Soul."

Condemnation snickered, "Make me."

So Mercy unsheathed his sword and cut Condemnation in two.

As Soul watched in astonished pain, he was overtaken by the power of Mercy. Mercy walked up to Soul and said, "I have dealt with Condemnation before. He should not show up around you anymore."

Soul replied, "How can I ever thank you?"

"Well," replied Mercy, "I was sent here by God and He told me to introduce you to a dear friend of mine. His name is Redemption."

Redemption walked up and said, "Hello Soul, I see that you are not doing well."

Soul replied, "Not until Mercy came along. It is a pleasure to meet you Redemption."

"Well", said Redemption," I am glad to meet you. Are you ready to accept me?"

"What do you mean?" asked Soul.

Redemption said, "Well, when you accepted Jesus and decided to walk with Him, then you chose to accept the things of Him and His love. I am a part of Jesus' love. I help you feel forgiven. You will never have to deal with Condemnation again. Temptation may come around, but I have someone I would like for you to meet who can help you with that. His name is Grace."

Grace walked up to Soul and said, "Hello Soul, I have been waiting for you. As a matter of fact all three of us have been waiting to meet you. I will help you take the way out of Temptation that God gives you as it comes up. The last person we want you to meet is Faith."

"Hi Soul, I am Faith, and I will help you stay strong and keep your beliefs strong," said Faith.

Soul began to cry. When he began to cry Redemption said, "This is what we were here for. Jesus redeemed you, saved you by Grace through Faith and gives you his Mercy. Jesus loves you Soul."

Soul said, "I love you, Jesus."

Just Five More Minutes

While at the park one day, a woman sat down next to a man on a bench near a playground.

“That’s my son over there,” she said, pointing to a little boy in a red sweater who was gliding down the slide.

“He’s a fine looking boy” the man said. “That’s my daughter on the bike in the white dress.”

Then, looking at his watch, he called to his daughter. “What do you say we go, Melissa?”

Melissa pleaded, “Just five more minutes, Dad. Please? Just five more minutes.”

The man nodded and Melissa continued to ride her bike to her heart’s content. Minutes passed and the father stood and called again to his daughter. “Time to go now?”

Again Melissa pleaded, “Five more minutes, Dad. Just five more minutes.”

The man smiled and said, “OK.”

“My, you certainly are a patient father,” the woman responded.

The man smiled and then said, “Her older brother Tommy was killed by a drunk driver last year while he was riding his bike near here. I never spent much time with Tommy and now I’d give anything for just five more minutes with him. I’ve vowed not to make the same mistake with Melissa.

She thinks she has five more minutes to ride her bike. The truth is, I get Five more minutes to watch her play.”

Life is all about making priorities, what are your priorities?

Give someone you love 5 more minutes of your time today!

Sand and Rock

A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the Journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand:

TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:

TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE.

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?".

The other friend replied "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."

LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE!!!

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them.

Do not value the THINGS you have in your life. But value WHO you have in your life!

Life's short. If you don't look around once in a while, you might miss it.

-- Author Unknown

Life and Work

This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an Honorary PhD.

"I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk or your life on a bus or in a car or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.

People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've received your test results and they're not so good.

Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and them to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre, at my job if those other things were not true.

You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.

It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live.

I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with the sun on your face.

Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived".