from my e-mails....

I receive many notes of support and I also receive notes from those who are discouraged. Life has kicked them once too many times. I am sharing a few of them with you, in the hopes that they will encourage you. Please feel free to share this blog with others that you feel may also need a lift.


"God, I need strength, and I need courage. I am slowly failing you. Each day that goes by I am moving further away from you. Please, guide me in the right direction." ~ sinking ship

My response to this:

God is moving right along with you. Remember the "Footprints" prayer? "When you see one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you!" Try to look for the good in each day. Did you see the sunrise? God gave us light to feel warm, safe and happy. Did you hear a baby cry? It is God telling us that Life moves forward in rebirth. Did someone smile at you? It is God showing you his friendship through others. Did a song come on that moved you to sing out loud? God is sending you His joy! Have you smelled a flower in bloom? God gave us that sense of smell to allow wonder into our lives! God is always HERE.....take each day in its moments, feel each moment in gratitude. Whatever it is that is stealing you away, ask God to come back and hold you in His Hand. May His peace always be with you, my friend!

 "i would greatly appreciate it if someone could pray that i receive encouragement, strength, and endurance. i believe God has placed it on my heart to wait in expectation for something in my future. however, in this last stretch, it seems harder then ever and i want to give up. so please pray that i can make it to the end and be able to receive this in His perfect timing." ~ still waiting

 God knows what you need and when to grant it. Do not give up but in all things, look to Him for supplication and favor! Also, be sure to thank God for the many things and blessing that you already have. Even the smallest, such as a beautiful sunrise, or the full moon, a puppy...a new baby's smile. God is in the smallest of the details! Pray the Our Father without ceasing...knowing in Faith that what you need will be given to you! My prayers are with you also!
 

"I need prayers for one of my lost sheep who is suffering from Drug Addiction and currently homeless. I was bringing him to church and showing him a better way. He is my daughter's father and my ex. I want him to overcome his addiction, so he can be able to have a relationship with his daughter and possibly to be a family again." ~worried ma

 I understand that you wish for him to be sober, but he needs to want this for himself. No amount of begging, pleading or cajoling from the outside will make him see the light. Only realization that his life is passing him by will show him what he needs to do. Then with God's help, he can move forward.


and what encourages me most- notes of gratitude!!

 "Thank you Lord for keeping me together, when everything seems to be falling apart. My faith is with you always."

" Things are hard at times, but i can make it because God is here with me;
Sometime i can't feel His presence, and I tend to forget that He's there, nonetheless He stays and continue to Guide and Love me just the same.. ...am sorry for the times that I failed to show my gratitude to God by doing the right thing, so am asking God to forgive me and help me live a life filled with gratitude to His bountiful blessings. Amen"

I will leave you with a story:

The Arbor

Behind an apartment at the edge of town stands an arbor. Six feet high, it was designed and built to support climbing plants, and it has been put to good use. The residents have planted climbing roses at the base of the arbor posts, and then added trellises to help the roses climb to the top. Beneath the arbor are shrubs, flowering bushes, and statuary. Hanging from the rungs at the top are bird-feeders. The arbor is beautiful to see, and undoubtedly a source of great pleasure to its owners.

Nearby sits a second arbor. Almost identical to the first, it stands stark, bare, and unused. Its sole adornment is a fading, yellow thermometer, nailed to one of the posts. With nothing to cover it, the wood appears much older and more weathered. A monument to futility and unrealized purpose, the second arbor stands stark, bare, and wasted.

Your life stands like an arbor, a gift from God, waiting to be used. You can choose to complain that your arbor is too short, or too weathered, or not as nice as somebody else's, or you can start planting. God is not going to judge you on whether your life flowered as beautifully as someone else's. But God will judge you on whether you used what he gave you or not.

Beethoven could have complained that his hearing was worse than others, and excused himself from even trying. He chose to plant instead, and in the process, revolutionized music.

The famous physicist Steven Hawking could have complained that few other people have to cope with a debilitating illness like his. Instead, he chose to plant, and revolutionized the science of physics.

For every arbor larger than yours, I can show you one that is smaller or more dilapidated or more limited. The choice is yours: complain, or start planting.

Your life is God's gift to you. What you make of it is your gift to God.

Go in peace to love and serve each other. Thanks be to God!