E.E. Cummings

To be nobody but yourself - in a world that is doing its best, night & day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

Anais Nin

...and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

William Arthur Ward

Life lived without forgiveness becomes a prison

Let it go

• We so easily allow the winter of regret to eradiate the joy of spring and all things new. Its a mental battle that is as powerful as any fought in trenches or in tanks.

• "Should" is something we can NOT control. It is the past, not the future. So why do we spend all our time beating ourselves up for something we cant get back?

• We cling to our dreams of what we wish the past could have been & set ourselves up to be hurt again & again

• How much of your life have you spent looking in the rearview mirror of your life? Spending too much time with your focus there can lead to a wreck!

• A person preoccupied with herself is a person not preoccupied with God

• I have discovered that its hard to fall off a pedestal when you are washing someone's feet.

• I heard someone say that the hour or two we spend worshipping on a Sunday is the time when we are the least honest & real. Perhaps that is because we are afraid to show who we really are in case we are rejected or judged.

• Kindness is underrated in our world. Simple acts of mercy leave more of the fragrance of Christ because they touch us where we live & where we are the thirstiest.

-Sheila Walsh

Mark Twain

Most people are bothered by those passages in Scriptures which they cannot understand, but as for me, I always notice that the passages in Scripture which troubles me most are those which I DO understand

Corrie Ten Bloom

The purpose of being guilty is to bring us to Jesus. Once we are there, then its purpose is finished. If we continue to make ourselves guilty - to blame ourselves - then that is sin in itself.

Let it go - Sheila Walsh

*I will have lots of quotes still to come - but this story really stood out.....

She opened the box that had been delivered that morning & peeled back layer upon layer of soft, pink tissue paper. Nestled inside was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. She pulled it out & held it up to the sun that was streaming through her bedroom window.

The dress was exquisite. It was white & had satin ribbons around the waist that tied in a bow in the back. She tried it on & it fit as if it had been tailor made. Not usually given to spontaneity or to dancing, she found herself twirling around & round. The ribbons flew out behind her like flags in a summer breeze.

Suddenly, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. She almost didn't recognize herself: light, FREE, almost childlike. She stopped immediately & took off the dress. Putting it back in the box, she covered it once more with the tissue paper & placed the box under the bed. She took her old gray dress off the chair, pulled it over her head, & straightened her hair in the mirror.

"There," she said. "That's as it should be"

Breast Cancer Patient

I have learned that silence really does have the loudest voice

Rick Pitino

If you tell the truth, a mistake becomes part of your past - if you lie, then it becomes part of your future.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger

The people & circumstances around me do not MAKE me what I am - they REVEAL who I am.

Harry Truman

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunites & an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.

Never the Same

I guess sometimes tears are the only words you have left....

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

...This kind of forgetting does not erase memory, it lays the emotion surrounding the memory to rest....

Henry Ford

Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.

Ann Landers

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good

The Vigil

He was an uncomplicated, happy man with a soulful laugh that could tenderize the toughest of moments

Albert Einstein

Great spirits will always encounter violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Pablo Picasso

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die have left undone

Can be done!

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it

Mark Spitz

We all love to win, but how many people love to train?

Flannery O' Connor

You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people's suffering & not your own.

Marilyn Ferguson

Your past is NOT your potential. In any hour, you can choose to liberate the future

Courage

Courage is not the absence of fear. Its going ahead despite the fear.

Hellen Keller

I thank God for my handicaps, for through them, I have found myself, my work & my God.

Sundays at Tiffany's

People always remember the worst days of their lives. It becomes a part of them forever.

Rollo May

It is an old & ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way

The Noticer

• Whatever you focus on - increases

• When you focus on the things you need, you'll find those needs increasing. If you concentrate your thoughts on what you DONT have, you will soon be concentrating on other things that you had forgotten you dont have - & feel worse!!! If you set your mind on loss - you are more likely to loose... but a GRATEFUL perspective brings happiness & abundance into a persons life.

• A life filled with opportunities and encouragement finds more & more opportunities & encouragement & success becomes inevitable.

• What is it about me that other people would change if they could?

• Its time to stop letting your history control your destiny

• Most people spend so much time fearing the things that are never going to happen or can't be controlled that they have no energy to deal with the few things they can actually handle

• ...the seeds of depression cannot take root in a grateful heart.

• One way to define wisdom is the ability to see, into the future, the consequences of your choices in the present.

Happiness Sold Seperately

Ted used to think he should help patients get a better handle on reality by correcting their senile fantasies. He's learned though that people find it more comforting when you humor them a bit. "Really? Can you imagine? The nerve!" - The patients seemed RELIEVED that someone was at least listening & responding.

Demon: a Memoir

Apologizes are a funny thing. Half the time they're insincere & even when they aren't - there's nothing a person can do to undo whatever he did... -Lucian

6 Hours , One Friday

Jesus only went IN the grave to prove he could come OUT of it!

Jodi Hills

Understanding that heavy things cant fly, she let go of what was weighing on her heart, the things she could no more control than carry, & she gave herself a chance. A chance to reach into the unassuming blue, to embrace the possibilities of an open sky, with an open heart.

She gave herself a chance to soar!

The Penny

• I understand that something doesnt disappear when you push it away. It waits for you & eventually when it beckons, you've got to go back to it.

• People have a way of looking at other people & seeing things the way they THINK them to be, not the way they really are. -Miss Shaw

• The worst thing you can do is go into a day being afraid. -Miss Shaw

• Not many people know how it feels to be so hurt on the inside that you'd rater die than live with it. -Miss Shaw

• I could finally see - how a persons words said a whole lot more about the person who said them than they did about the person they were said to. -Jenny

• I learned that if you offered your hand to reassure & be of good use to someone, it went a long way toward helping YOU overcome how somebody else's hand had done you harm. - Jenny

• When a voice keeps needling at you, it can have the same effect as a steady drip of water wearing a rock into sand -Jenny

• That night, I realized God doesnt always make something go away because we pray. When we pray, He often gives us the strength to stand up to it. -Jenny

Knit Two

• It's a great irony that suffering could bring the gift of compassion

• We grieve loss. Its not always about death.

• We all typically dont go around revealing our secret shame. But sometimes, we are graced with enough awareness to learn from them

A stitch in Time

When a person is down to nothing, that's when God is up to something!

Multiple Blessings

Sometimes knowing a decision is the right one to make doesnt make the sting of consequences any easier to bear. -Kate Gosselin

New Moon

....I found I could survive. I was alert, I felt the pain - the aching loss that radiated out from my chest, sending wracking waves of hurt through my limbs & head - but it was manegable. I could live through it. It didnt feel like the pain had weakened over time - rather that I'd GROWN STRONG ENOUGH to bear it!" -Bella

Post Secret

Sometimes you dont know you've crossed a line until you're on the other side & cant go back

Lousy T-shirt

• Jesus didnt go around asking people to "BELIEVE" in him... instead, he asked people to FOLLOW him!!! According to Jesus, being a Christian is NOT so much abouting believing or behaving correctly, as it is about traveling with him!

• Do you know who you are? YOU'RE THE ONE JESUS LOVES!

Earth to Betsy

• Saint Benedict said "Always, we begin again"

• Making mistakes is part of life - its what do you AFTER you make a mistake that shows who you really are

UnChristiain

• While Knowledge may make us feel important, it is love that really builds up the church" -(1 Cor 8:1 NLT)

• Christians have become famous for what we oppose, rather than who we are FOR!

Henry David Thoreau

"Its not what you look at that matters - its what you see"

The Elevator

"If one desires a thing badly, longing can concoct enough courage to over ride fear"

"Deceit is a lie that wears a smile"

Batman Begins

"My anger outweights my guilt"

"Why do we fall? So that we may learn to pick ourselves up!"

"Its not my name - its what I DO that defines me"

From The Shack

"I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships, so will our healing. And I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside"

"Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets"

"It is remarkable how a seemingly insignficant action or event can change our entire lives"

"Sometimes honesty can be incredibly messy"

"Why do we need to pray if God knows everything anyways? Just as we sit & listen to children tell their stories over & over again - or we let them win a race - or let them think they are beating us - we humble ourselves. God does it too - listening to us be His children"