Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't. —Richard Bach

Power is so characteristically calm, that calmness in itself has the aspect of strength. —Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman. —Jonathan Swift

We climb to heaven most often on the ruins of our cherished plans, finding our failures were successes. —Amos Bronson Alcott (Louisa May Alcott's father)

Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals. —Unknown

When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure. —Peter Marshall

He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist. —St. Francis of Assisi

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. —Jane Howard

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together. —Erma Bombeck

The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them. —Ralph Nichols

When you travel, you experience,...the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations...and on most journeys you don't even understand the language...you are like a child just out of the womb. You begin to attach...more importance to the things around you because your survival depends on them. You begin to be more accessible to others because they may...help you...you accept any small favor...with great delight, as if...you would remember [it] for the rest of your life. —Paulo Coelho

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquillity. —James Thurber

An ethical person ought to do more than he's required to do and less than he's allowed to do. —Author Unknown

After all it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life. —Evelyn Underhill

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. —Author Unknown

There is a strength of a quiet endurance as significant of courage as the most daring feats of prowess. —Henry Tuckerman

Not all those who wander are lost. —J.R.R. Tolkien

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. —George Bernard Shaw

But Christ has been raised to life! And he makes us certain that others will also be raised to life. —The Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:20

Choices are the hinges of destiny. —Edwin Markham

There are moments in your life when you really miss someone, that you want to pick them from your dreams and hug them for real. Hope you dream of that someone. — Author Unknown

Maybe surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
I just wanna go home
Oh I miss you, you know
—from "Home",
performed by Michael Buble

Those who are in the Lord never say goodbye for the last time. —Scottish Proverb

Kissing is like drinking salted water: you drink and your thirst increases. --Chinese Proverb

Much of the distress we experience as Christians comes not as the result of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature. For instance, the only test we should use to determine whether or not to allow a particular emotion to run its course in our lives is to examine what the final outcome of that emotion will be. Think it through to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something that God would condemn, put a stop to it immediately. —Oswald Chambers

Do caterpillars know they are going to be butterflies, or does God surprise them? — Bil Keane, Family Circus

A Blast From the Past

Got a quote today--a long one! Last night, I suddenly remembered this classic poem that my dad used to read to me when I was a kid. He wasn't real demonstrative when I was growing up, (He got better!) but there was never any doubt what he was saying when he read this to me.

-------------------------------

The Children's Hour
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,

Comes a pause in the day's occupations,

That is known as the Children's Hour.



I hear in the chamber above me

The patter of little feet,

The sound of a door that is opened,

And voices soft and sweet.



From my study I see in the lamplight,

Descending the broad hall stair,

Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,

And Edith with golden hair.



A whisper, and then a silence:

Yet I know by their merry eyes

They are plotting and planning together

To take me by surprise.



A sudden rush from the stairway,

A sudden raid from the hall!

By three doors left unguarded

They enter my castle wall!



They climb up into my turret

O'er the arms and back of my chair;

If I try to escape, they surround me;

They seem to be everywhere.



They almost devour me with kisses,

Their arms about me entwine,

Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen

In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!



Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,

Because you have scaled the wall,

Such an old mustache as I am

Is not a match for you all!



I have you fast in my fortress,

And will not let you depart,

But put you down into the dungeon

In the round-tower of my heart.



And there will I keep you forever,

Yes, forever and a day,

Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,

And moulder in dust away!

--------------------------------

I love you too, Daddy!

The longer I live, the more faith I have in Providence, and the less faith in my interpretation of Providence. -- Jeremiah Day

Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.--Sam Levenson

Our wedding was many years ago. The celebration continues to this day. -- Gene Perret

Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy. -- Eskimo Proverb

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them. -- Desmond Tutu

When you live with another person for 50 years, all of your memories are invested in that person, like a bank account of shared memories. It’s not that you refer to them constantly. In fact, for people who do not live in the past, you almost never say, “Do you remember that night we...?” But you don’t have to. That is the best of all. You know that the other person does remember. Thus, the past is part of the present as long as the other person lives. It is better than any scrapbook, because you are both living scrapbooks. - Federico Fellini

Repeat - hope you understand

Life has become a little less sweet, death a little less bitter, heaven a little more real. — Puritan Proverb (variation)

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. -- Mark Twain

My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. -- Clarence B. Kelland

PRAY FOR MY MOM!

PRAY FOR MY FAMILY!!

My parents were in a car wreck today. My dad didn't make it. My mom's being lifelined to a major hospital.

PRAY!!

thank you

If suffering brought wisdom, the dentist’s office would be full of luminous ideas. — Mason Cooley

Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past. — Henry Ward Beecher

God gave us memories that we might have roses in December. — J.M. Barrie

At every party there are two kinds of people -- those who want to go home and those who don't. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other. — Ann Landers

It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start. — Mother Teresa

Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of to-day...it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its own soul. — Francis Thompson

Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power. A childlike and abiding trust in Providence is its best preventive and remedy. — Unknown

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. — Abraham Lincoln

Christmas is the day that holds all time together. — Alexander Smith

I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses. — Taylor Caldwell

Despair is most often the offspring of ill-preparedness. — Don Williams, Jr

People need trouble -- a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don't mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy. — William Faulkner

There cannot be a crisis today; my schedule is already full. — Henry Kissinger

Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart. — Henry Clay

When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself. — Isak Dinesen (Baroness Karen Blixen)

There are times when a battle decides everything, and there are times when the most insignificant thing can decide the outcome of a battle. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Some businessmen are saying this could be the greatest Christmas ever. I always thought that the first one was. — Art Fettig

Shopping is a woman thing. It's a contact sport like football. Women enjoy the scrimmage, the noisy crowds, the danger of being trampled to death, and the ecstasy of the purchase. — Erma Bombeck

One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching. — Unknown

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. — Herm Albright

It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent. — Dave Barry

In the opinion of the world, marriage ends all, as it does in a comedy. The truth is precisely the opposite: it begins all. — Anne Sophie Swetchine

Probably the reason we all go so haywire at Christmas time with the endless unrestrained and often silly buying of gifts is that we don't quite know how to put our love into words. — Harlan Miller

Poisons and medicine are oftentimes the same substance given with different intents. — Peter Mere Latham

When we walk to the edge of all the light we have, and take that step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen—there will be something solid for us to stand on, or God will teach us to fly. — Leiden ‘94 (?)

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge we make promise only; pain we obey. — Marcel Proust

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who'll decide where to go.
— Dr. Seuss

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. — Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist. — St Francis of Assisi

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. — Charles Dickens

When I walk by the wayside, He is along with me. When I enter into company amid all my forgetfulness of Him, He never forgets me. In the silent watches of the night, when my eyelids are closed and my spirit has sunk into unconsciousness, the observant eye of Him who never slumbers is upon me. — Thomas Chalmers

Most grandmas have a touch of the scallywag. — Helen Thomson

The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. — Faith Whittlesey

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul. — Michel de Montaigne

The whole value of solitude depends upon one's self; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it. -- John Lubbock

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease. — William Osler

It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men. — C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road. — John Henry Jowett

God is a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade, or only like foam on the sea shore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. — C.S. Lewis: "Screwtape"

One of life's gifts is that each of us, no matter how tired and downtrodden, finds reasons for thankfulness: for the crops carried in from the fields and the grapes from the vineyard — J. Robert Moskin

Except ye become as little children, except you can wake on your fiftieth birthday with the same forward-looking excitement and interest in life that you enjoyed when you were five, "ye cannot enter the kingdom of God." One must not only die daily, but every day we must be born again. — Dorothy L. Sayers

The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes the most urgent thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest. — Ashleigh Brilliant

If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. — Moses (to God), Bible - Exodus 33:15

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle. — Vincent van Gogh

By virtue of being born to humanity, every human being has a right to the development and fulfillment of his potentialities as a human being. — Ashley Montagu

The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you're learning you're not old. — Rosalyn S. Yalow

Always make your presence felt, in such a way that somebody misses you, but let not your absence be so long that somebody starts learning to live without you. — Pope Benedict XVI

Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. If I study hard, will I become a bad person? — Author Unknown

Yet, if he would, man cannot live all to this world. If not religious, he will be superstitious. IF he worship not the true God, he will have his idols. — Theodore Parker

Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age. — William Feather

Kissing is like drinking salted water. You drink, and your thirst increases. — Chinese Proverb

That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger. — George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking. — Jessamyn West

Our current obsession with creativity is the result of our continued striving for immortality in an era when most people no longer believe in an after-life. — Arianna Stassinopoulos

Almost no one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves great success in any field of activity; yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage. — Sydney J. Harris

We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory. — Unknown

If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work. — William Shakespeare

You may think it's easier to de-ice your windshield with a flamethrower, but there are repercussions. Serious repercussions. — Homer Simpson

History as a discipline can be characterized as having a collective forgetfulness about women. — Clarice Stasz Stoll

When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality. — Muriel Spark