Carve your name upon hearts, not upon marble.

Christ be with you
Christ within you
Christ behind you
Christ before you
Christ beside you
Christ to win you
Christ to comfort and restore you
Christ beneath you
Christ above you
Christ in quiet
Christ in danger
Christ in hearts of all that love you
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

“The reason why many fail in battle is because they wait until the hour of battle. The reason why others succeed is because they have gained their victory on their knees long before the battle came.”
– R.A. Torrey

Sin takes you further than you want to go, makes you stay longer than you want to stay, and makes you pay more than you want to pay.

“Live so that when you tell someone you are a Christian, it confirms their suspicions instead of surprising them.”
– Unknown

Arrogance has its own built-in misery. The arrogant person may offend others, but he hurts himself more. I was once stung by a honeybee. The sting hurt me, but it hurt the bee more – the bee died as a result of that thrust, but I didn’t.
– Billy Graham

“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”
– Rabindranath Tagore

“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” Carl Gustav Jung

Source: Charissa Ee – theorangechalk.blogspot.com
She has a wonderfully insightful Blog. Check it out.

“The summer time is the one season when Satan is the most successful in getting God’s people to do everything else but what they should be doing on the Lord’s Day.”

If all the sleeping folk will wake up,
If all the lukewarm folk will fire up,
If all the dishonest folk will confess up,
If all the disgruntled folk will cheer up,
If all the depressed folk will cheer up,
If all the estranged folk will make up,
If all the gossipers will shut up,
If all true soldiers will stand up,
If all the dry bones will shake up,
If all the church members will pray up…
Then we can have a revival!

–R. G. Lee

The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. It is like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books…a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.

Albert Einstein

Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement. He is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor – that is the only way out of a hole. This process of surrender – this movement full speed astern – is repentance.

– C. S. Lewis

It is precisely when every earthly hope has been explored and found wanting, when every possibility of help from earthly sources has been sought and is not forthcoming, when every recourse this world offers, moral as well as material, has been drawn on and expended with no effect, when in the shivering cold every stick of wood has been thrown on the fire, and in the gathering darkness every glimmer of light has finally flickered out—it is then that Christ’s hand reaches out, sure and firm, that Christ’s words bring their inexpressible comfort, that his light shines brightest, abolishing the darkness for ever.

– Malcolm Muggeridge

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.

– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Source: The Gulag Archipelago

God does not work by only one method, paint in only one color, play in only one key, nor does He make only one star shine onto the earth. God’s mystery is the rich spectrum of color that is gathered together in the purity of the sun’s white light. The symphonic harmony of all the stars is built up on precisely their manifold variety.

Source: Eberhard Arnold: A Testimony from His Writings

A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every passerby leaves a mark.
Chinese proverb

On the true front each must fight against himself, and only through the decisions of this battle is he given full power for other decisions. He is the man of whom it is said that he has weakened the strength of the battle; but in fact he keeps alive the truth of the battle.

Author: Martin Buber
Source: “Recollection of a Death” (1929)

Our true life is not this external, material life that passes before our eyes here on earth, but the inner life of our spirit, for which the visible life serves only as a scaffolding—a necessary aid to our spiritual growth.

Seeing before him an enormously high and elaborately constructed scaffolding, while the building itself only just shows above its foundations, man is apt to make the mistake of attaching more importance to the scaffolding than to the building for whose sake the former has been temporarily put up.

We must remind ourselves and one another that the scaffolding has no meaning and importance except to render possible the erection of the building itself.

Author: Leo Tolstoy

We are called to be fruitful – not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Discipleship is not limited to what you can understand – it must transcend all comprehension. Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own understanding, and I will help you to comprehend.

Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge. In this way Abraham went forth from his father, not knowing where he was going. That is the way of the cross. You cannot find it in yourself, so you must let me lead you as though you were a blind man.

Not the work which you choose, not the suffering you devise, but the road which is contrary to all that you choose or contrive or desire – that is the road you must take. It is to this path that I call you, and in this sense that you must be my disciple.

Source: Martin Luther (1483-1546), quoted in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Cost of Discipleship.”

Trials keep You Strong,
Sorrows keep You Human,
Failures keeps You Humble,
Success keeps You Glowing,
But Only God keeps You Going!

After the Western ideal of unlimited freedom, after the Marxist concept of freedom as acceptance of the yoke of necessity—here is the true Christian definition of freedom. Freedom is self-restriction! Restriction of the self for the sake of others!

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The care of another – even material, bodily care – is spiritual in essence. Bread for myself is a material question; bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.

-Jacques Maritain

A brother said to an old man, “I do not know of any warfare in my heart.” The old man said to him, “Then you are a building open on all four sides. Whatever wishes to, goes in and out, and you do not notice. If you had windows and a door, and shut them so as to bar certain thoughts, you would soon realize how many there are outside, waiting to slip in and attack you.”

When the eagle soars in the endless blue,
its shadow races after, far below.
Yet space does not divide; bird and shadow are linked.
So too each act — each choice and consequence.

-Jigme Lingpa

God does not waste suffering, nor does He discipline out of caprice. If He ploughs, it is because He purposes a crop.
— J. Oswald Sanders

We have been called to be fruitful–not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.

Henri J. M. Nouwen
Public address at Yale, March 30, 1995

The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God’s love; but if the soul cannot yet feel this longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God.

-Meister Eckhart

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A Cherokee elder sitting with his grandchildren told them, “In every life there is a terrible fight – a fight between two wolves. One is evil: he is fear, anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, and deceit. The other is good: joy, serenity, humility, confidence, generosity, truth, gentleness, and compassion.” A child asked, “Grandfather, which wolf will win?” The elder looked him in the eye. “The one you feed.”

Which one do you feed?

Congressman Gary Franks (R., Conn.) recalls one thing he learned in college that was not on the curriculum:

I remember taking copious notes and listening to everything the teacher had to say in preparation for my first test at Yale. I looked at the exam and saw it was everything I had studied. I wrote the answers to the three questions thinking, Boy, this is easy!

As we waited to get our tests back I was positive I’d get an A. Instead my grade was a C. Under it, in big red letters, was written, “I know what I said. What do you think?”

It was a valuable awakening. I realized that Yale did not simply want you to absorb ideas but to think about them and challenge them. It forced me to explore things from every possible angle, looking for aspects that might not be obvious at first but were helpful in developing a dialogue on an issue.

In the same way, it’s not enough to simply know what Jesus said and did; we must personally appropriate his finished work by deliberately putting our faith in Him.

Source: Reader’s Digest, June 1996, p. 33.

I have observed the power of the watermelon seed. It has the power of drawing from the ground and through itself 200,000 times its weight. When you can tell me how it takes this material and out of it colors an outside surface beyond the imitation of art, and then forms inside of it a white rind and within that again a red heart, thickly inlaid with black seeds, each one of which in turn is capable of drawing through itself 200,000 times its weight–when you can explain to me the mystery of a watermelon, you can ask me to explain the mystery of God.

Author: William Jennings Bryan

David McCullough in his book Mornings on Horseback tells this story about young Teddy Roosevelt:

“Mittie (his mother) had found he was so afraid of the Madison Square Church that he refused to set foot inside if alone. He was terrified, she discovered, of something called the ‘zeal.’ It was crouched in the dark corners of the church ready to jump at him, he said. When she asked what a zeal might be, he said he was not sure, but thought it was probably a large animal like an alligator or a dragon. He had heard the minister read about if from the Bible. Using a concordance, she read him those passages containing the word ZEAL until suddenly, very excited, he told her to stop. The line was from the Book of John, 2:17: ‘And his disciples remembered that it was written, ‘The ZEAL of thine house hath eaten me up”‘

People are still justifiably afraid to come near the “zeal” of the Lord, for they are perfectly aware it could “eat them up” if they aren’t one of His.

Author: David McCullough
Source: Mornings on Horseback

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” -The Apostle Paul- II Corinthians 12:8-10

Our world prizes strength–the physical strength of athletes, the financial strength of companies, the political strength of officeholders, and the military strength of armies. But Paul put a new twist on the notion of strength: weakness can make a person strong.

Most of us would have no problem with God using our natural areas of strength, such as speaking, organizing, managing, or selling. But suppose He chose instead to use us in areas where we are weak?

Moses claimed to be a poor speaker (Ex.4:10), yet God used him as His spokesman on Israel’s behalf. Peter tended to be impulsive and even hot-headed, yet God used him as one of the chief architects of the early church.

Weakness has a way of making us rely on God far more than our strengths do.

Source: “The Word in Life Study Bible” p. 2103

Waiting for God is not laziness. Waiting for God is not going to sleep. Waiting for God is not the abandonment of effort. Waiting for God means, first, activity under command; second, readiness for any new command that may come; third, the ability to do nothing until the command is given.

Author: G. Campbell Morgan

I establish myself today in:

The power of God to guide me,
The might of God to uphold me,
The wisdom of God to teach me,
The eye of God to watch over me,
The ear of God to hear me,
The word of God to speak to me,
The hand of God to protect me,
The way of God to lie before me,
The shield of God to shelter me,
The hosts of God to defend me,
Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in breadth, Christ in length,
Christ in height, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who hears me.

Taken from “My Sacrifice, His Fire” by Anne Ortlund.

“Don’t avoid prayer because you think you are not articulate or expressive. The stumbling, bumbling words of a tear-stained heart ring out louder in the spirit realm than the finest resonating voice of an orator.”

Author: T. D. Jakes
Source: “T.D. Jakes Speaks to Men”

“…most of us, if asked to explain the biblical concept of joy, might have difficulty clearly defining it. Yet Scripture presents a distinct definition–vastly different from the world’s definition of joy, which is simply happiness…It is associated with hope and life, but the experiences of sorrow also prepare for and enlarge the capacity for joy…

Jesus used the analogy of a woman giving birth to a child (Jn 16:21). During the process of birth, there is much pain and agony. But after the birth, the pain and agony are turned to joy at the sight of the newborn child. Sorrowful experiences enlarge the capacity for joy when they are viewed in terms of their results.

There are three essential biblical features of joy that separate it from the world’s ‘happiness’:
-Joy is eternal.
-Joy is reserved for the believer.
-Joy is a state of mind not dependent on circumstances.

1. Joy is eternal…Joy is an eternal part of the kingdom of God, for it is a part of the nature of the Holy Spirit…
2. Joy is reserved for the believer…’The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control’…An unbeliever may manifest semblances of these spiritual fruits, but he cannot experience what believers experience. Apart from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, true joy cannot exist…
3. Joy is a state of mind not dependent on circumstances. Whereas happiness depends largely on happenings,
good health and so on, joy is inherent within the Christian life (the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.)…Only the hope created by God gives a reason for joy and peace…”

Author: Ronald F. Bridges
Source: “Rediscovering Your First Love” (Here’s Life Publishers, Inc.)

Scripture
Romans 15:13

Admonished for his lack of familiarity with modern science, the Indian mystic Sundar Singh asked, “What is science?”

“Natural selection, you know, and the survival of the fittest”, he was told.

“Ah”, Sundar Singh replied, “but I am more interested in divine selection, and the survival of the unfit.”

Sacrifice yourself for once for God’s will. It will not be in vain. Sacrifice yourself for truth, for justice. Sacrifice yourself for once against all human sense for something that is truly good. Sacrifice yourself for Christ in all things, and seek the kingdom of God. There is great strength in this- Stand for something: then your joy will be unbroken and lasting.

C. F. Blumhardt

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each person’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There is something about life that, little by little, makes us forget all that is good. This can happen to anyone…and so we must look for a cure against it. Praise be that such a cure exists: the act of quietly making a decision. A decision stirs the mind from the slumber of monotony. A decision breaks the magic spell of custom and the long row of weary thoughts. A decision will bring blessings upon even the weakest beginning. A decision is an awakening to the eternal.

Soren Kierkegaard

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?”
Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?”
And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?”
But Conscience asks the question, “Is it right?”
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.

Source: The Gulag Archipelago
– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

To the same measure that we put ourselves at the disposal of God’s cause,
to the same measure that we put God’s will into practice,
so will we gain confidence in our personal life.
For we are promised, “Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.”
That is our faith, and it can answer every need of our time.

-Else von Hollander, January 1932

A rabbi asked his students, When is it at dawn that one can tell the light from the darkness?

One student replied, When I can tell a goat from a donkey.
No, answered the rabbi.
Another said, When I can tell a palm tree from a fig.
No, answered the rabbi again.
Well, then what is the answer? His students pressed him.

Only when you look into the face of every man and every woman and see your brother and your sister, said the rabbi.
Only then have you seen the light. All else is still darkness.

Without the knowledge of our wretchedness, the knowledge of God creates pride.
With it, the knowledge of God creates despair.
The knowledge of Christ offers a third way, because in him we find both God and our wretchedness.

-Blaise Pascal

An old man once said, “For a long period, I puzzled myself about the difficulties of Scripture, until at last I came to the resolution, that reading the Bible was like eating fish. When I find a difficulty, I lay it aside, and call it a bone. Why should I choke over the bone when there is so much nutritious meat for me? Some day, perhaps, I may find that even the bone may afford me nourishment.”

There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you are interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstances permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.

Author: Art Turock
Source: Getting Physical (Doubleday)

“Two men looked out from prison bars.
One saw mud; one saw stars.”

“There is a beauty, a quiet splendor, in the journey of maturity when we travel with You… year by year, season by season, growing closer, becoming more and more Your servant and Your friend. Help me, Lord, to live so closely to Your truth, so completely in Your will, that wisdom lines my spirit as time lines my face. Keep my heart forever young, my hope in You unfailing. Let me age in autumn colors, dressed in banners of Your love.”

John R. W. Stott once admitted the truth that many of us have felt but failed to confess: “The thing I know will give me the deepest joy — namely, to be alone and unhurried in the presence of God, aware of His presence, my heart open to worship Him — is often the thing I least want to do.”

Author: John R. W. Stott

“The same sun that melts the wax, hardens the clay”

A Middle Eastern mystic said, “I was a revolutionary when I was young and all my prayer to God was: ‘Lord, give me the energy to change the world.’

As I approached middle age and realized that my life was half gone without my changing a single soul, I changed my prayer to: ‘Lord, give me the grace to change all those who come into contact with me, just my family and friends, and I shall be satisfied.’

Now that I am an old man and my days are numbered, I have begun to see how foolish I have been. My one prayer now is: ‘Lord, give me the grace to change myself.’ If I had prayed for this right from the start, I would not have wasted my life.’

Source: John Maxwell’s “Developing the Leader Within You”

Sesame Street had a skit one time of the old fairy tale of the princess and the frog. In the Sesame Street version the princess kissed the frog, and then turned into a frog herself. It is closer to the Christmas story. God became one of us.

“Christ has come, the Light of the world. Long ages may yet elapse before

Child advocates would remove the child from the custody of his mother when they discovered she was shacking with a guy (not the child’s father) in a barn. In most jurisdictions that would constitute child neglect. Of course, Mary would have an underpaid court appointed attorney to represent her in the dependent-neglect proceeding, and Joseph would be out of luck once it was determined that paternity could not be established within a reasonable degree of medical certainty through blood or DNA testing (97% probablilty that Joe was the dad is sufficient, but absent divine intervention, that couldn’t happen, hmmm?). He would be excluded from juvenile court as a stranger to the proceeding and investigated for possible sexual deviance (all those oxen and asses around), and he would be told that he had no standing to object since he was not the natural father of the child and was not yet married to Mary (by their own admissions they had not yet consummated their union).

Human nature is like a stable inhabited by the ox of passion and the ass of prejudice; animals which take up a lot of room and which I suppose most of us are feeding on the quiet. And it is there between them, pushing them out, that Christ must be born and in their very manger he must be laid – and they will be the first to fall on their knees before him. Sometimes Christians seem far nearer to those animals than to Christ in his simple poverty, self-abandoned to God.

Author: Evelyn Underhill

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“Dollar for dollar, we are able to buy more things and make more things for more of our people than any other society. Ours has been described by sociologists as ‘the’ consumer society. And we’ve got the goods and the dispositions to buy them to prove it….

If I speak in the tongues of Christmas materialism and greed but have not love, I am only a tinny Christmas song or an out of tune choir.

If I have the gift of knowing what Aunt Agatha will give me this year and can even understand last year’s present, and if I have the faith that I won’t get yet more socks and ties this year but have not love, I am nothing.

If I clear out the house and give everything to charity and my credit cards are snapped in half but have not love, what can I possibly gain?

Love is patient when the fourth store you’ve tried doesn’t have a bottle garden.
Love is kind and lets the couple with only a few items go in front of you and your bulging shopping cart.
Love does not envy your friend who gets mega-presents from everybody.
Love does not boast about the £400 bike, the Xbox 360, the TV, VCR, and computer your dad gave you.
Love does not attempt to out buy, out wrap, and out give the rest of the family just to impress.
Love doesn’t cut Aunt Flo off your Christmas card list because she forgot you last year.
Love is not self-seeking and leaves a copy of your Christmas list in every room of the house.
Love is not easily angered when the young girl at the checkout takes forever because she is just temporary staff.
Love doesn’t keep remembering how many times your mum forgets you don’t like Brussels sprouts.
Love does not delight in the commercial bandwagon but rejoices with the truth of a baby born in the stable.
Love always protects the family from Christmas hype.
Love always trusts that the hiding places for presents will remain secret for another year.
Love always hopes that this year more neighbours will drop in to your open house coffee morning.
Love always perseveres until the cards are written, the presents all bought, the shopping done, and the Christmas cake iced.

Toys may break, socks wear thin but love never fails.

Where there is the feeling of the presents to guess their contents, and mum going on about being good so Father Christmas will come, and searching through the cupboards to find your hidden presents, they will all stop.

For we think we know what we are getting, and we hope we know what we are getting but when Christmas Day arrives all will be revealed.

When I was a child I talked with big wide-open eyes about Christmas, thought that Christmas was all about me, I reasoned that Jesus should have been born more often. When I became an adult, I forgot the joy, wonder, and excitement of this special time.

Now we just hear about the angels, shepherds, and wise men, then we shall see them all the time. Now I know as much as the Bible says about the first Christmas, then I shall know just how many wise men there were and where they came from.

Now three things remain to be done:
To have faith that the baby born in a stable is the Son of God.
To hope that the true message of Christmas will not get discarded with the wrapping paper and unwanted gifts.
And the most important to have a love for others like the one that God has for us.

Copyright 2001 Claire Jordan (caleb@eurobell.co.uk).
Permission is granted to send this to others, but not for commercial purposes.
Source: www.mikeysFunnies.com

Today I stood at my window and cursed the pouring rain,
Today a desperate farmer prayed for his fields of grain
My weekend plans are ruined, it almost makes me cry
While the farmer lifts his arms and blesses the clouded sky.

The alarm went off on Monday and I cursed my work routine,
Next door a laid off mechanic feels the empty pockets of his jeans.
I can’t wait for my vacation, some time to take for me,
He doesn’t know tonight how he’ll feed his family.

I cursed my leaky roof and the grass I need to mow,
A homeless man downtown checks for change in the telephone.
I need a new car, mine is getting really old,
He huddles in a doorway, seeking shelter from the cold.

With blessings I’m surrounded, the rain, a job, a home,
Though my eyes are often blinded by the things I think I own.

Use what talents you possess: The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.

It is almost as presumptuous to think you can do nothing as to think you can do everything.
–Phillips Brooks

“I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contented condition, when suddenly a stab of pain threatens serious disease, or a newspaper headline threatens us all with destruction. “At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happiness look like broken toys. And perhaps, by God’s grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys. “Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear. God has had me for but 48 hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe the sword for a minute, and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over — I shake myself as dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness in the nearest flower bed. “And that is why tribulation cannot cease until God sees us remade.”

Source: From The Problem of Pain; quoted in Daily Walk, May 16/17, 1992

“The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own.”

(Charles Spurgeon, Commenting and Commentaries, NY: Sheldon, 1876, p. 62)

“All of us at times find ourselves and our futures seemingly in the hands of other people. Their decisions or their actions determine whether we get a good grade or a poor one, whether we are promoted or fired, whether our careers blossom or fold. I am not overlooking our own responsibility in these situations, but all of us know that even when we have, so to speak, done our best, we are still dependent upon the favor or frown of that teacher or boss or commanding officer. We are, from a human point of view, often at the mercy of other people and their decisions or actions…

Can we trust God that He can and will work in the heart of that individual to bring about His plan for us? Or consider the instance when someone is out to harm us, to ruin our reputation, or jeopardize our career: Can we trust God to intervene in the heart of that person so that he does not carry out his evil intent? According to the Bible, the answer in both instances is yes. We can trust God.”

Source: Jerry Bridges – “Trusting God”

When a potter bakes a pot, he checks its solidity by pulling it out of the oven and thumping it. If it ‘sings,’ it’s ready. If it ‘thuds,’ it’s placed back in the oven. The character of a person is also checked by thumping.

Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.

A child is an island of curiosity surrounded by a sea of question marks.

-Anonymous