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

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

~ Will Rogers
It is the nature of grace
always
to fill spaces
that have been empty.
~ Goethe

Remember that
the darkest hour
only lasts 60 minutes

~ on the girls' bathroom wall/Gordon College

Is prayer your steering wheel
or your spare tire?

~ Corrie Ten Boom

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

~ unknown
If you're going through Hell,
don't stop!
~ a great song I can't remember (anyone know?)
Planting seeds
inevitably
changes my feelings
about rain.
~ Luci Shaw (from her poem "Forecast")

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

~ Carissa Cooper

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

~ St. Francis of Assisi

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

~ Randy Alcorn in Tell Me About Heaven
The first demand any work of art
makes upon us is surrender.
Look.  Listen.  Receive.
Get yourself out of the way.
~ C.S. Lewis
When you have exhausted all the possibilities,
remember this -
you haven't.
~ Thomas Edison
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

When writing,
be more or less
specific

~ unknown
a children's book is
any book
a child will read.
~ Madeleine L'Engle
Creativity
is a way
of living
Life
~ Madeleine L'Engle

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

~ unknown
All shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of things shall be well.
~ Julian of Norwich

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

~ unknown
I would like to
paint the way a bird sings.
~ Claude Monet
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

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

~ Dean Sherman/YWAM

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

~ Oswald Chambers
I loved Christmas
until I grew up and realized
I had to make it happen!
~ an exasperated customer at the Living Cornerstone bookstore
Two classes of human beings defy
psychological categorizing
and are full of surprises:
Poets and Saints.
~ Sigmund Freud

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

~ Abraham Lincoln
Poetry takes something
that we know already
and turns it into something new.
~ T.S. Eliot
Doubt comes from a struggling mind.
Unbelief comes from a struggling will.
~ Chuck Missler

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

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

~ Henry Van Dyke

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
, God decided to bring a new life into the world.

He knew the world was full of strife, trouble, and people who lived in darkness. So He repeatedly sent new life, because where there is life, there is hope. "My people have need of hope again," God said. "One more child will help." He breathed into the womb of a praying woman, saying to the new life as she left His heart:

"Because I made you, I love you. No matter what you go through in this life, I will never leave you."

So the child arrived in a world that was not easy. But, as all children will do, she brought light and laughter with her. Her mother and father loved her, but as often happens, could no longer love each other. So they went their separate ways, but God made sure they each got to keep her. It was the best deal in a dark world.

God wanted the little girl to remember that He loved her, so He sent her a love letter.
It came in the form of her mother, who said to the child in her arms at night, "God made you, so He loves you, and no matter what you go through in this life, He will never leave you."

The little girl began to grow. Soon there was a new daddy who brought laughter and adventure to their lives. There were books, and crayons, and stories and people. But when she reached the age of eleven, her body stopped functioning like a normal child. She was so thirsty all the time, and she was shrinking, becoming skinny and bony. They rushed her to the hospital and the doctors saved her life, even with the diagnosis of Juvenile Diabetes. One late night in the hospital as she slept, the Holy Spirit came and hovered over her bed, and whispered into her dreams, "God made you, so He loves you. No matter what you go through in this life, He will never leave you." Then another figure, with kind eyes, leaned over to kiss her. He said, "Someday you will know me, and you'll remember me from the heart of God." The child slept.


Life became a struggle, and she faced death once or twice. But where there is life, there is hope. In fact, because there was a disease facing her every morning in her daughter's life, the mother soon found herself on her knees before God, saying "I thought I could handle life on my own, not bothering you. But this I can't do. I can't fix it. I can't save my little girl. I need your help." The same Holy Spirit was there, hovering, and listening and accepting that prayer of submission to the will of God. And then the same figure with kind eyes leaned over to kiss her, and accepted her place. A new life was born, as the woman who rose off her knees knew a different intimacy with God. She was alive, and where there is life, there is hope.

But the girl fought life. She resisted this change in her mother, and the need for discipline and healthy choices. She began to doubt that God was good. When she was 15, she again faced death, and when she miraculously woke up in the hospital and heard the nurses whisper, "out of control diabetic," she had to face the truth. She could not make this thing go away. She found herself on her knees, saying, "I thought I could handle life on my own, not bothering you. But this I can't do. I can't fix it. I can't save myself. I need your help."

She felt that she was not alone. She closed her eyes and felt a hovering, a whisper, that said, "Because I made you, I love you." She started to cry. She felt kind eyes on her, and heard a voice say, "Do you accept my life for yours? Will you give me everything, and turn from your own desires and ways?" Her yes came out of her like a cry in a storm. She felt rather than saw a kiss planted on her forehead. "I have accepted your prayer. My life for yours. Your life for mine." When she opened her eyes, there was no one in the room. But she heard these words in the deepest place of her heart: "No matter what you go through in this life, I will never leave you."

A new life was born, and the girl who rose off her knees knew a different intimacy with God. She was alive, and where there is life, there is hope.

I wish I could tell you she stayed on the straight and narrow, but fairy tales don't lie well. In fact, there were many times when she left the side of the One who would never leave her. But always, always, when she came to her senses, or had lost so much as to have no more choices, He was there, hovering and ready with kindness, ready to kiss her forehead and remind her: "Your life is mine. My life is yours. Because I made you, I love you. No matter what you go through in this life, I will never leave you." Would she ever truly believe this? Would she ever really stay by His side? How much did He really love her? Would His love have an end?

She would discover the answer to these questions in a far-away land. She was a woman now, and making decisions like a grown-up. But her heart still wandered. So she found herself alone, penniless, in a land where they did not speak her language, and fearful of the future. And to top it off, she was going blind. The diabetes had stalked her for years, danger just staying out of range, but it had finally caught up with her. She was facing the loss of independence, her vision, and possibly her life. She lay on her bed the night before a critical operation that would determine if she would keep or lose her sight. She knew that there was a God who loved her. He had filled her lifetime of faith and growth. He had always taken her back in His embrace. She could trust Him. But this was going too far. He would kill her. Then she remembered words that had been the structure of her life:

"Because I made you, I love you. No matter what you go through in this life, I will never leave you."

But there was more, and she remembered:

"My life for yours. Your life for mine."

Her life was already His. His life was already hers. If this was the end of the road, it was His choice. She couldn't stop it or change it. She could only trust Him.

So she said, squinting into the dark night with her shadowy eyes: "If you still want this life, it's yours. All of it. Whether I live or die, blind or seeing, forgotten or embraced, it's all yours."


She knew that was the most important prayer of her life. She felt the release into the arms of the hovering Holy Spirit, the kiss on her forehead, and the words ringing through her darkness once again:

"I have accepted your prayer."

Do fairy tales have happy endings? Even if they are true? In this story, although it cost her much time and pain, the woman did not go blind. When she left that foreign country, she was not the same woman who had fled there. A new life had been born. For the rest of her days, she would count that experience as the beginning of a different intimacy with God. She was alive, and where there is life, there is hope.


The life of adventure had just begun. Because she had learned that she could trust the One who called. She knew how He took care of what belonged to Him, even if it cost Him everything. Especially because it had cost Him everything. His life for hers. Her life lived in Him. These were more than catch phrases, or even prayers. She was alive, and where there is life, there is hope. A great hope.




A special note to anyone who feels cheated by the literary structure of my story about myself. There are many stories in the writing section that will give you more of a close-up view of some of the seasons of my life. I invite you to read them and let them begin to piece together "who I am." Not one of us is a simple story. We are all made up of many parts and story lines, some of them crossing and intertwining at the most inconvenient intervals. It's part of the adventure to learn to read people the way God does: Because He made us, He loves us. And He will never leave us



If you are ready to abandon your life into the hands of the One who made you, and who loves you, I encourage you to pray a prayer of release similar to the one I prayed. Give your life to Jesus Christ, the man with the kind eyes who took your place on the Cross. You cannot make yourself into anything without Him, but with Him He can make you into someone He dreamed of from the moment He breathed life into you.



You can read about Jesus in the Holy Bible. There is a great link to The Message Bible here, and we have linked you in to the story written by the Apostle John. (www.biblegateway.com) Read it for yourself, and then ask God to show Himself to you. It's one of the things He loves to do.

Lisa's Story © 2008 Lisa LaLonde