July Twenty- Eighteen
pictures below from Seattle to California to India! Oh the places we have gone!
Go before us, that we may follow your steps
Go behind us to steer us when we stray.
Go behind us as our strength and joy for the journey...
We beseech thee, Lord, to help us to be
foolish enough to stand for you,
foolish enough to trust you,
foolish enough to call upon you, and
foolish enough to wait on you.
A true community is not just about being geographically close to someone or part of the same social web network. It's about feeling connected and responsible for what happens. Humanity is our ultimate community, and everyone plays a crucial role.
-Yehuda Berg
Forgive any reluctance
we might have to engage
fully with this new day...
Replace our detachment
with expectation,
for all we might achieve
if we put our trust in you
and your confidence in us.
-John Birch
I love these words about marriage from John Gottman: "It's an honest, big-picture question. Really, what's the point? Happiness? Comfort? Solidarity? Companionship?
Sure, those are nice things. Important things, vital to a successful marriage. But they aren't the point. The point of marriage is growth.
Marriage is what Dr. David Schnarch, author of the book Passionate Marriage, calls a “Human Growth Machine.” Which means that when you make those vows, you agree to support one another and grow together in a positive way.
Not to deliver unending happiness (which sounds boring), but to grow and learn from each other through all of life's challenges and difficulties, as well as through the beautiful moments, too. Happiness will be there, and the more the better. And dedication to positive growth in your marriage is exactly what leads to the periods of happiness, trust, connection, passion, and commitment." -The Gottman Institute
All the darkness
in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.
- St. Francis of
Assisi~
Disturb us, O Lord,
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life.
- Desmond Tutu (adapted from Francis Drake)
And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside
This is grace, an invitation to be beautiful
This is grace, an invitation
Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces
Calling out our best
And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside
-Sara Groves
I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.
-Mother Teresa
So let me be content to minister regardless of the visible
outcomes, trusting that the small mercies I
extend will be woven into the larger theme of
redemption at work in the lives of others
as you woo them to yourself, drawing their hearts
by graces offered, and shaping my own heart too
in this process of learning to serve well, and
by learning to serve well, learning to love well.
When a man or woman has the conviction that he or she is
doing the work God gave him or her to do, there is a zeal and a courage
in his or her soul that all the forces of this world cannot destroy. -Charles
Stanley
"I know what beauty is, for Thou hast set the world within my heart; It's glory from me will not part; I never loved it more than now." -George McDonald
On May 28, 1972, the Duke of Windsor, the uncrowned King
Edward VIII, died in Paris. The same evening, a television program
rehearsed the main events of his life. Extracts of earlier films
were shown, in which he answered questions about his upbringing, brief reign
and abdication. Recalling his boyhood as Prince of Wales, he said,
“My father (King George V) was a strict disciplinarian. Sometimes when I
had done something wrong, he would admonish me by saying, “My dear boy, you
must always remember who you are.” It is my conviction that our
Heavenly Father says the same to us everyday: “My dear child, you must always
remember who you are.”
May these pictures from our
Children of the Kingdom banquet in India remind you of the "great love that
the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And
that is what we are!"
“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.” ― L.R. Knost
