How I take sorrow

As to how I take sorrow, the answer is 'In nearly all the possible ways.' Because, as you probably know, it isn't a state but a process. It keeps on changing — like a winding road with quite a new landscape at each bend.

C.S. Lewis

Bombarded

Because nothing promotes inner peace like being bombarded with a constant stream of information about other people’s lives.

Markoff Chaney

The most important part

The most important part of Christmas is the first six letters.

He remembers my name

One important part of the Christmas story we typically skip past is the first chapter of the New Testament.  Flip a Bible open to Matthew chapter one and take a look. Why do you think did Matthew started his Gospel with a seemingly boring list of decedents? That dry list of names is Jesus' genealogy. It tells us where He came from on a human level. It is recorded first because anyone presented as "King to the Jews" at this time had better have the ancestry to prove it.

In the Old Testament, after conquering Canaan, it was your tribe, family and father's house that determined where you lived. The book of Ruth tells us that for some land transitions, the pedigree had to be known to conduct business. After the Babylonian captivity, Ezra tells us that many were claiming to be priests. To verify this, they had to be able to produce the proper pedigree. Remember what Mary and Joseph were doing at the start of the New Testament? They were going to register by pedigree for taxation purposes.

Knowing where you came from helps you understand who you are--as well as where you are going.

There's another reason this list of names in Matthew chapter one is significant. There are some 50 genealogies in the Old Testament filled with the names of people we don't know. People who've been forgotten. The record is a reminder that they lived--and while they aren't important to us, they were important to God. He remembered each one.

You may not be know beyond your small circle of acquaintances, but you are significant to him. So much so, Jesus says the hairs on your head are numbered (Matthew 10:30).

Next time you open up the New Testament to read the story of the birth of Christ, don't just skip to angels, shepherds and wise men. Pause for a moment and remember what it means to see those names.

Stephen Goforth

For the Birds... pt. 2

Christmas comes each year to draw people in from the cold. Like tiny frightened sparrows, shivering in the winter cold, many live their lives on the barren branches of heartbreak, disappointment, and loneliness, lost in thoughts of shame, self-pity, guilt or failure. One blustery day follows another, and the only company the keep is with fellow-struggers who land on the same branches, confused and unprotected.

Then, as the year draws to a close, Christmas offers its wonderful message. Emmanuel. God with us. He who resided in heaven, willingly descended into our world. He breathed our air, felt our pain, knew our sorrows, and died for our sins. He didn't come to frighten us, but to show us the way to warmth and safely.

Charles Swindoll
The Finishing Touch

Happy Christmas!

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

Charles Dickens

For the Birds, pt. 1

The Christmas story absolutely escaped Tom. The whole “God born in a manger” thing was beyond him. Or maybe it was just too simple for him to grasp. At least, until that Christmas Eve when the snow began to fall. Tom had just settled into his fireside chair and begun to read when he heard thumping sounds on the window and at first he thought someone was throwing snowballs. He went to the door. Looking into the yard, he found a small flock of birds, huddled there in the snow. They had been caught in the storm and had desperately tried to find shelter by flying through his large living room window. He knew he couldn’t let those little creatures freeze. The barn! Where the children keep the pony. That would provide shelter if he could get the birds in there.

He opened the barn doors and turned on a light. The birds didn’t move. Maybe some food would entice them. He sprinkled bread crumbs next to the stable door. Nothing. He tried catching them and shooing them. The birds went everywhere, except into the barn. They were afraid of him. I want them to trust me, he thought. How can I convince them I want to help? But any move he made tended to frighten them. They would not follow or be lead or shooed.

“If only I could be a bird myself,” he thought. “If I could be a bird and mingle with them and speak their language and show them the way to the barn, then they could see and understand.” It was at that moment the church bells began to ring. Listening to the good news, Tom understood--and sank to his knees in the snow.

Resistance

Are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is.

Steven Pressfield

How well do you know the Christmas Story?

1. What did the angels sing to the shepherds?

2. In what direction did the Wise Men look to see the star in the sky?

3. Where did the wise men go to see the baby?

4. How many wise men were there?

5. In which season of the year was Jesus born?

6. What did Mary ride on to Bethlehem?

7. What did the wise men ride on?

8. In what country did the Christmas tree originate?

9. In what century did Christmas celebrations begin?

10. Was there ever an original, real Santa Claus?

11. What Christmas tradition commemorating the birth of Jesus did St. Francis of Assisi begin? 

12. What is frankincense?
    a. a precious metal
    b. a precious fabric
    c. a precious perfume
    d. an Eastern monster story

13. What is Myrrh?
    a. an easily shaped metal
    b. a spice used for burying people
    c. a drink
    d. aftershave lotion

14. Did Jesus tell us to remember his birth?

15. What did Jesus tell us to remember?

Answers

Outside the zone

All the interesting, important stuff happens outside the comfort zone.

Michael Hyatt

The cure for despair

Action is the antidote to despair. -Joan Baez

Your spark of madness

You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.
Robin Williams

Who's life are you living?

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

Steve Jobs

Your Brand

Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room.
Jeff Bezos

Stubbing your toe

You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere.

Charles F. Kettering

Climbing high mountains

You walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.

Seeing and Observing

You see, but you do not observe.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)

Swimming Naked

You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out.

Warren Buffett

You never know

You never know when you're making a memory.

You must

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Through the shadows

Making Friends

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

Dale Carnegie

A simple Choice

You make what seems a simple choice: Choose a man or a job or a neighborhood—and what you have chosen is not a man or a job or a neighborhood, but a life.

Jessamyn West

When you are finished

You are not finished when you are defeated. You’re finished when you quit.

In five years

You are the same today as you will be five years from now except for two things... the people you meet and the books you read.
Charles E. Jones

Getting more

The world says the more you take, the more you have. Christ says the more you give, the more you are.

Frederick Buechner

The Towel

You have a choice. You can throw in the towel, or you can use it to wipe the sweat off of your face.

Women

Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood. Oscar Wilde

Two Things

Winners must have two things: definite goals and a burning desire to achieve them.

The Whole of Life

The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born, when we die, although it is the tragic fate of most individuals to die before they are born.
Erich Fromm

New Horizons

Where there is passion and desire, there will always be new horizons.

Pretending

You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty.
Sacha Guitry

Choices and Consequences

While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.
Stephen Covey

Dreaming and Waking

While most are dreaming of success, winners wake-up and work hard to achieve it.

Your Story

Individuality

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Eric Hoffer

Your adversary

Natural Style

When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.

Blaise Pascal

a Happy Marriage

What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility. - Tolstoy

a worthy goal

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.

Victor Frankl

The Details

We think in generalities but live in detail.

Alfred North Whitehead

Look for the Helpers

When I was a boy and would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster" I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers-so many caring people.

Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers)

Rules and Faults

We set up harsh and unkind rules against ourselves. No one is born without faults.

Homer

Miracle and Mystery

We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.

H. G. Wells

The Wall

We may be up against a stone wall, but we don't have to bloody our heads against it unless we choose to.

William Glasser

When the door is closed

When God closes a door, he opens a window... And then pushes you right out.

The search

We learn more from looking for the answer to the question than we do from learning the answer itself.

Lloyd Alexander

The Play

Not Enough

We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Jonathan Swift

The Chains

This is when it happens

We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

ee cummings

Unlearning

We are our habits

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

Aristotle

Spilling over

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

Ray Bradbury

Surprises

Virtue

Virtue is never a waste of time. If it was a waste then it never was a virtue.

Your grandfather, your baby brother

Bad weather

Too often man handles life as he does the bad weather. He whiles away the time as he waits for it to stop.  Alfred Polgar

The music within

Heart and Body

Steps

Do nothing

Resisting

Time for Departure

Moments when you find out...

Surround yourself

Meaning in Suffering

Your best speech

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

Ambrose Bierce

The key to self-respect

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline: the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.

Refuting Socrates

Say rather, beloved Agathan, that you cannot refute the truth: for Socrates is easily refuted. Socrates

The sadness wall

Sadness is a wall between two gardens.
Kahlil Gibran

When you don't want to grow up

“Sorry, but that is the way I am.. I was like this in the beginning, am now, and ever shall be..” is a handy motto and delusion to hang around your neck when you don’t want to grow up.

You are going to die

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way that I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
Steve Jobs

Preaching with your life

Preach the gospel all the time; if necessary, use words
St. Francis of Assisi

The question

Pragmatism asks, “It is useful?” Christianity asks, “Is it right?”

The smallest things

Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart. Winnie The Pooh

Self-control Strategy

People with the best self-control aren’t the ones who use it all day long. They’re people who structure their lives so they conserve it.
John Tierney

What do you pursue?

People pursue happiness, but it’s always temporary. Pursue meaning instead. Emily Esfahani Smith

Bravery

Only the brave can endure suspense. Mignon McLaughlin

Favorable Conditions

The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favourable conditions never come.
CS Lewis

Signs of Endings

Endings and losses are the commonest first sign that people are in transition. These endings tend to be signaled by one of several experiences:

• A sudden and unexpected event that destroys the old life that made you feel like yourself 
• The “drying up” of a situation or a relationship 
• An activity that has always gone well before, suddenly and unexpectedly goes badly 
• A person or an organization that you have always trusted proves it be untrustworthy 
• An inexplicable or unforeseen problem crops up 

 William Bridges
The Way of Transition

Love and Labor

One loves that for which one labors, and one labors for that which one loves. Erich Fromm

Taking the Shot

100% of the shots you don't take, don't go in. - Wayne Gretzky

The Story Changes

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters. George Elliot

Our Double Life

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us.
Steven Pressfield

Cheerful evil

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. - Blaise Pascal

Get to know yourself

Make things = know thyself.

The Lying Habit

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Listening is not

Listening is not thinking about what you are going to say when the other person has stopped talking.

H Norman Wright

Replace the drama

Life is too short for drama and petty things. So KISS slowly; LAUGH insanely; LOVE truly; And FORGIVE quickly!

a Matter of Moments

Life isn't a matter of milestones but of moments.
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

The measure of life

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breathe away.

The storms and the dance

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain.

The sun and the shadows

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows.

Clint on fear

It’s what people know about themselves inside is what makes them afraid.
– Clint Eastwood in “High Plains Drifter”

It's easy

It's easy to give time to the harmless and inconsequential over the significant and enduring.

Old Friends

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

What moves us

It is not strength but desire that moves us.

Your good qualities

It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

The cost

It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things; but to convert rebellious wills cost Him crucifixion.
B C.S. Lewis

A better time on the trip

In the long run the pessimist may be proved right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip.

Daniel L. Reardon

Stop a moment

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.
Leo Tolstoy

Build your story

In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story.

Jeff Bezos

Giving Advice

In giving advice, seek to help, not please your friend.
Solon

At any moment

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

Charles Dubois

Going thru hell

If you're going through hell, keep going.

Winston Churchill

Convincing them

If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
Harry S Truman

Ask him this question

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Moldy Bread

If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.

Muhammad Ali

winnie’s wise words

If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.

Winnie the Pooh

Be Bold

In times of stress, be bold and valiant.

Homer

Possibility

If I were to wish for anything. I should not wish for wealth and power. but for the passionate sense of the potential. And what wine is so sparkling.. what so fragrant.. what so intoxicating.. as possibility!
 - Soren Kierkegaard

Confessing Christ

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.  – Martin Luther

If, then

If God does not exist, then everything is permitted. – Fyodor Dostoevsky

the Way it is

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell. - Harry S Truman

Forward and Backward

I learned that one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back - that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a one-way street, isn't it?

Agatha Christie

answered prayer

I have had prayers answered -  most strangely so sometimes - but I think our heavenly Father's loving kindness has been even more evident in what He has refused me. -   Lewis Carroll

Keep Dancing

I get up. I walk. I falldown. Meanwhile, I keep dancing.

It's contagious

A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.

The World She Wants

How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself. - Anais Nin

Hearing and Listening

Hearing captures the words a person speaks; listening captures the meaning and the feeling beneath those words.

Made for a Purpose

I believe God made me for a purpose.. and when I run I feel His pleasure. Eric Liddell

Making Mistakes

He who never made a mistake never made a discovery. 
Samuel Smiles

the Cross,the Strength

He sends a cross, but He also sends the strength to bear it. – Leo Tolstoy

Do the exceptional

Have the courage to live. Anyone can die. – Robert Cody

Eyesight

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them. –Leo Tolstoy

The Best

The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything that they have.

It depends

Happiness doesn't depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them.  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

A Cause that's Bigger

The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
William James

Courage

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart. - Robert G. Ingersoll

Fear

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. - Elbert Hubbard

Becoming over Being

The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Getting Older

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.  - Madeleine L'Engle

nonbelievers

Great hypocrites are the true atheists. - Francis Bacon

Greener Grass

The grass is always greener wherever you water it.

Display

Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace. – Karl Barth

The Arrival

Grace arrives, unannounced, in lives that least expect or deserve it. - Andrew Sullivan

Change and growth

A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love. – Pearl S. Buck

Motives

Few study religion to learn how to live – many search it for justification for the way they already live.

What to Forgot

Forget the times of your distress, but never forget what they taught you. - Herbert Gesser

The Visitor

Grace arrives, unannounced, in lives that least expect or deserve it. Andrew Sullivan

The Comedian

God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny. Garrison Keillor

Whispers & Shouts

God whispers to us in our pleasures. speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world – CS Lewis

The Simple Solution

For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. - H. L. Mencken

The owners of the future

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. – Eleanor Roosevelt

God's requirement

God doesn’t require us to be a success – only faithful.

Why God Creates

God does not create in order to acquire something but in order to share Himself.

What God asks

God does not ask about our ability, but our availability.

The Gateway

The Gateway to Christianity is not through an intricate labyrinth of dogma, but by a simple belief in the person of Christ. – William Lyon Phelps

Songbirds

The forest would be quite silent if only the most beautiful birds sang.

The goal of Marriage

The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.
Robert C. Dodds

God's Sons

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering. – Saint Augustine

The real thing

Genuine love is an active striving for the growth and happiness of the loved person, rooted in one’s own capacity to love.

The Comic

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

Failure's Opportunity

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. - Henry Ford

Turning Failure into Success

Failure is success if we learn from it. – Malcolm Forbes

The root of heartache

Expectation is the root of all heartache.

Who can learn from experience

Experience teaches only the teachable. Aldous Huxley

Changing humanity

Everybody think of changing humanity, but nobody thinks of changing himself. J Harold Smith

Each Success

Each success you encounter only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult challenge.

An act of Love

Every day should be distinguished by one particular act of love.

Artists and Amateurs

Every artist was first an amateur.  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

How to know if you are educated

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence. - Robert Frost

What's worth knowing

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. -Oscar Wilde

Laughter on the earth

The earth laughs in flowers. ee cummings

A Dream

A dream is not what you see in sleep. A dream is what does not let you sleep.

Don't!

Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today!

Come Alive

Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Where to Look

Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.
African Proverb