Monday, November 28, 2011

YE SONG OF YE GOSSIPS

One old maid,
And another old maid,
And another old maid--that's three--
And they were agossiping, I am afraid,
As they sat sipping their tea.

They talked of this,
And they talked of that,
In the usual gossiping way
Until everybody was black as your hat,
And the only ones white were they.

One old maid,
And another old maid,--
For the third had gone into the street--
Who talked in a way of that third old maid,
Which never would do to repeat.

And now but one Dame sat all alone,
For the others were both away.
"I've never yet met," said she, with a groan,
"Such scandalous talkers as they."

"Alas! and alack!"
"We're all of a pack!
For no matter how we walk,
Or what folk say to our face, our back
Is sure to breed gossip and talk."

H. PYLE


Linking up with A Wise Woman Builds Her Home

Friday, November 25, 2011

Partakers of His Sufferings

“Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings.” I Peter 4:13

If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all, they are meant to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what transpires in other souls so that you will never be surprised at what you come across. Oh, I can’t deal with that person. Why not? God gave you ample opportunity to soak before Him on that line, and you barged off because it seemed stupid to spend time in that way.

The sufferings of Christ are not those of ordinary men. He suffered “according to the will of God,” not from the point of view we suffer from as individuals. It is only when we are related to Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. It is part of Christian culture to know that God’s aim is. In the history of the Christian Church the tendency has been to evade being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ; men have sought to procure the carrying out of God’s order by a short cut of their own. God’s way is always the way of suffering, the way of the “long, long trail.”

Are we partakers of Christ’s sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp our personal ambitions right out? Are we prepared for God to destroy by transfiguration our individual determinations? It will not mean that we know exactly why God is taking us that way, that would make us spiritual prigs. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through; we go through it more or less misunderstanding; then we come to a luminous place, and say - “Why, God has girded me, though I did not know it!”

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

WORDS

Words are lighter than the cloud-foam
Of the restless ocean spray;
Vainer than the trembling shadow
That the next hour steals away.
By the fall of summer raindrops
Is the air as deeply stirred;
And the rose-leaf that we tread on
Will outlive a word.

Yet, on the dull silence breaking
With a lightning flash, a Word,
Bearing endless desolation
On its blighting wings, I heard:
Earth can forge no keener weapon,
Dealing surer death and pain,
And the cruel echo answered
Through long years again.

I have known one word hang starlike
O'er a dreary waste of years,
And it only shone the brighter
Looked at through a mist of tears;
While a weary wanderer gathered
Hope and heart on Life's dark way,
By its faithful promise, shining
Clearer day by day.

I have known a spirit, calmer
Than the calmest lake, and clear
As the heavens that gazed upon it,
With no wave of hope or fear;
But a storm had swept across it,
And its deepest depths were stirred,
(Never, never more to slumber,)
Only by a word.

I have known a word more gentle
Than the breath of summer air;
In a listening heart it nestled,
And it lived for ever there.
Not the beating of its prison
Stirred it ever, night or day;
Only with the heart's last throbbing
Could it fade away.

Words are mighty, words are living:
Serpents with their venomous stings,
Or bright angels, crowding round us,
With heaven's light upon their wings:
Every word has its own spirit,
True or false, that never dies;
Every word man's lips have uttered
Echoes in God's skies.

Adelaide Anne Procter

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Thoughts to ponder

1. The best way to get even is to forget. . .

2. Feed your faith and your doubts will starve to death. . .

3. God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts. . .

4. Marriages may be made in heaven, but they have to be maintained on earth. . .

5. Unless you can create the whole universe in 5 days, don’t try to give “advice” to God.

6. Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, faith looks up. . .

7. Standing in the middle of the road is dangerous. You will get knocked down by the traffic from both ways.

8. Words are the windows to the heart.

9. A skeptic is a person who when he sees the handwriting on the wall, claims it’s a forgery.

10. It isn’t difficult to make a mountain out of a molehill, just add a little dirt.

11. A successful marriage isn’t just finding the right person - it’s being the right person.

12. The mighty oak was once a little nut that held its ground.

13. The tongue must be heavy indeed, because so few can hold it.

14. To forgive is to set the prisoner free, and then discover the prisoner was you.

15. You’ll notice a turtle only makes progress when it sticks out is neck. . .

16. You are richer today if you have laughed, given, or forgiven.

17. If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, be assured the water bill is higher.
 
Author(s) Unknown

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The Ministry of Darkness

“What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light” (Matt. 10:27)

Into the dark of the shadowed home
Where sorrow has drawn the blind,
Into the dark of the lonely life
Where friendships are left behind,
Into the darkness of sorrow and pain,
Our Lord leads His children, again and again.

There He tells them secrets eternal,
Where their ear can hear each word,
For the tumults of earth had drowned His voice,
But there, His alone is heard.
And the eyes which the glare of earth made dim,
Now in the darkness behold only Him.

But we are not meant long to linger
In the darkened hours of night,
“What I tell you here in the darkness,
Speak ye in the place of light.”
You who have found Him sufficient indeed
Bear words of comfort to others in need.

Our souls need their mountains of fellowship,
Their valleys of quiet rest,
Their nights ‘neath the stars with infinite view
For a vision of God’s best;
That man who the pathway of darkness hath trod,
With light in his soul, is the man who knows God!


by Barbara C. Ryberg

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Ministry is....

Giving when you feel like keeping...

Praying for others when you need prayed for...

Feeding others when your own soul is still hungry...

Living truth before people when you cannot see results...

Hurting for others when your own hurts cannot be spoken...

Keeping your word when it is not convenient...

Being faithful when your own flesh wants to run away.


-Author Unknown