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

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

~ St. Francis of Assisi
I loved Christmas
until I grew up and realized
I had to make it happen!
~ an exasperated customer at the Living Cornerstone bookstore
If you're going through Hell,
don't stop!
~ a great song I can't remember (anyone know?)

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

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

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

~ Dean Sherman/YWAM

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

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

~ unknown
I would like to
paint the way a bird sings.
~ Claude Monet
The first demand any work of art
makes upon us is surrender.
Look.  Listen.  Receive.
Get yourself out of the way.
~ C.S. Lewis

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

~ Henry Van Dyke
All shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of things shall be well.
~ Julian of Norwich
Doubt comes from a struggling mind.
Unbelief comes from a struggling will.
~ Chuck Missler

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

~ unknown

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

~ Will Rogers

Remember that
the darkest hour
only lasts 60 minutes

~ on the girls' bathroom wall/Gordon College
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
The best translation of the word "love"
is the name Jesus;
That will tell us everything about love
we need to know.
~ Canon Tallis

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

~ Carissa Cooper

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

~ Abraham Lincoln
Two classes of human beings defy
psychological categorizing
and are full of surprises:
Poets and Saints.
~ Sigmund Freud

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

~ Oswald Chambers

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

Is prayer your steering wheel
or your spare tire?

~ Corrie Ten Boom
It is the nature of grace
always
to fill spaces
that have been empty.
~ Goethe

When writing,
be more or less
specific

~ unknown

Nursing Home Vision

for Grandma Min
Tracing-paper skin,
            worn to the bone -
Your arm lifts to your weary face,
            and suddenly I see
                        like shapes in the clouds - passing -
A figure in the dark blood spot on your arm.
            Dancing, arms raised
            Blood flowers scattering as it moves
                        feet agile and free
                                                unlike yours (dead, stone-weights)
The wrinkles in your arm ripple the vision
            like wind on water -

And I smile.
It’s just the picture I have of you in my mind,
            Dancing, laughing
                        Joy finally made flesh
                        when He at last reaches down
                                                and unlocks the chains
                                                that hold you to this earth.

You fuss with your fingernails,
            never knowing the veil between two worlds
            has been lifted for me.
                        They become the same, this world of pain and departure
                                                and that realm of Joy.

When you leave us - leave me -
            I’ll remember a blood spot on your arm
            And think of you Dancing on your way
                                    to His courts.

Lisa B. LaLonde
© November  9, 1995