Beware of paying attention
or going back to what you once were,
when God wants you to be something
that you have never been.
~ Oswald Chambers
Two classes of human beings defy
psychological categorizing
and are full of surprises:
Poets and Saints.
~ Sigmund Freud

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves,
for they shall never cease to be amused.

~ unknown

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

~ Henry Van Dyke
a children's book is
any book
a child will read.
~ Madeleine L'Engle

When God wants to show you what human nature is like separated from Himself, He shows it to you in yourself.

~ Oswald Chambers
Do not have your concert first, and then
tune your instrument afterwards.
Begin the day with the Word of God and prayer,
and get first of all into harmony with Him.
~ Hudson Taylor

My best friend is a person who
will give me a book
I have not read.

~ Abraham Lincoln

Spiritual warfare
isn't just casting out demons;
it's Spirit-controlled thinking
and attitudes.

~ Dean Sherman/YWAM
If you're going through Hell,
don't stop!
~ a great song I can't remember (anyone know?)
Doubt comes from a struggling mind.
Unbelief comes from a struggling will.
~ Chuck Missler
The first demand any work of art
makes upon us is surrender.
Look.  Listen.  Receive.
Get yourself out of the way.
~ C.S. Lewis
It is the nature of grace
always
to fill spaces
that have been empty.
~ Goethe

Don`t cry yet;
there`s still God!

~ Carissa Cooper

One good thing about being wrong
is the joy it brings to others.

~ unknown

Remember that
the darkest hour
only lasts 60 minutes

~ on the girls' bathroom wall/Gordon College
I would like to
paint the way a bird sings.
~ Claude Monet

Experience is something you don't get
until just after you need it.

~ unknown

Even if you're on the right track
you'll get run over if you just sit there.

~ Will Rogers
Poetry takes something
that we know already
and turns it into something new.
~ T.S. Eliot

You will ask me where I get my ideas...I cannot tell you with certainty; they come unsummoned...in the silence of the nights, early in the morning... tones that sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

~ Ludwig Von Beethoven
Planting seeds
inevitably
changes my feelings
about rain.
~ Luci Shaw (from her poem "Forecast")
When you have exhausted all the possibilities,
remember this -
you haven't.
~ Thomas Edison
Creativity
is a way
of living
Life
~ Madeleine L'Engle

Hope means hoping
when things are hopeless,
or it is no virtue at all.
Faith means believing the incredible,
or it has no virtue at all.

~ G.K. Chesterton

"Maybe you've not yet tasted
your favorite food"
(regarding the feast prepared for us in heaven) 

~ Randy Alcorn in Tell Me About Heaven

When writing,
be more or less
specific

~ unknown
The best translation of the word "love"
is the name Jesus;
That will tell us everything about love
we need to know.
~ Canon Tallis

Start by doing what's necessary,
then what's possible,
and suddenly you are doing
the impossible.

~ St. Francis of Assisi
All shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of things shall be well.
~ Julian of Norwich
I loved Christmas
until I grew up and realized
I had to make it happen!
~ an exasperated customer at the Living Cornerstone bookstore

Is prayer your steering wheel
or your spare tire?

~ Corrie Ten Boom

Last Minute Adoption

for Elizabeth

While my Grandma sleeps
the woman in the next bed cries out -
            “Oh God help me!”
The cry of the ages - how can I sit silent?
            She doesn’t realize I am here -
                        blind eyes watch my shadow move towards her.
Does she think I am an angel?
            I leap so quickly in response to her cry.
Small comfort in a human touch
            when your spirit is restless and anxious
                        and your eyes dimmed,
but I give my hand to her.

Sweet and polite Southern woman -
            afraid to be a bother to me!
Who were you when you stood tall
            and when your eyes could see a face like mine?
Your legs are gone, and your broken eyes scan the shadows -
            For what?  For whom?
I fuss inside - where is your granddaughter?
They tell me you have no visitors.

I turn my eyes to my sleeping one.
I am flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone,
            but while she rests,
                        I will be your granddaughter too.

Lisa B. LaLonde
November 9, 1995