Inspirations

E-Mail from heaven

Last night I got an e-mail from God.

"Listen with your heart and soul. I am God, also known as the Boss. I know you have a lot of problems, just remember who I am and leave the solutions to me. I don't need your help!
If you have trouble with your car in traffic, relax and think of all the people who have to use the bus or walk every day to get to their destination. Just concentrate on your final destination!
If old age is beginning to bother you, with arthritis and glaucoma, diabetes and high blood pressure, and whatever else is awaiting you, do not despair. Think of all the children who have come to Me before their time, through no fault of their own!
If you are upset because you found some gray hair, think of the lovely women and good looking men who have become bald, due to radiation, because they have cancer. And remember to thank me.
If people talk behind your back and speak evil of you without just cause, thank Me that you are not one of them, talking about others.
If you are working and there never is enough money at the end of the month, be grateful that you have a job and you have your faith. There are those who have no job, no money and no faith. Count your blessings.
If you are upset because you have to work this week-end, think of all the mothers, including your own. Remember how she worked seven days a week, day and night to care for all your needs. Mothers are my right hand. I have a special place for them. I also have a special place for those who neglected their children, just be grateful that you realize the difference, and whatever problem you have, count on Me.
If somehow everything seems to be going wrong, but you have faith, do not despair. Think of all those who have no complaints, but also no faith. Do not change places and do not envy them. Your reward is waiting and is endless.
Whatever life brings you, do not give up. Search for tomorrow and keep the faith. At times I want to test you and see what is on the inside. The values of life are not measured in visible things but in divine things.
Every day is a gift from Me, whatever it brings. That is why it is called THE PRESENT!
Do not doubt me, because at times I want to test you. You cannot test Me, because I am the Boss, and always have been, and always will be. And don't you forget this like so many others.
Sometimes it will seem that your world will collapse, that everything will go wrong, and that there is no hope. It is then that I want you to think of Me, because I want you to know that without Me you are absolutely nothing. With Me you are everything, forever!
If at times there seems to be no solution, take your problems, no matter how big, no matter how much, pick them up and drop them in the file called: G.A.P." (God answers prayers).
If you have time tell a friend about this message. Thank you!"
Signed: God the boss!"

THINGS AREN'T ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM

Two traveling angels stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family. The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion's guest room. Instead the angels were given a small space in the cold basement. As they made their bed on the hard floor, the older angel saw a hole in the wall and repaired it. When the younger angel asked why, the older angel replied,
"Things aren't always what they seem."

The next night the pair came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife. After sharing what little food they had the couple let the angels sleep in their bed where they could have a good night's rest. When the sun came up the next morning the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field.
The younger angel was infuriated and asked the older angel how could you have let this happen? The first man had everything, yet you helped him, she accused. The second family had little but was willing to share everything, and you let the cow die.
"Things aren't always what they seem,"
the older angel replied. "When we stayed in the basement of the mansion, I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall. Since the owner was so obsessed with greed and was unwilling to share his good fortune, I sealed the wall so he wouldn't find it."

Then last night as we slept in the farmer's bed, the angel of death came for his wife. I gave him the cow instead.
Things aren't always what they seem."

Who am I?

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear,
For I wear a mask, I wear a thousand masks.
Masks that I am afraid to take off.
But none of them are me.
But don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I am secure,
That all is sunny and unruffled with me,
Within as well as without,
That confidence is my name and coolness my game,
And that I need no one,
Don't believe me, Please!

My surface may be smooth,
But my surface is my mask,
My vaying and ever concealing mask.
Beneath lies no smugness,
No complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me,
In confusion and fear,
In loneliness.

I idly chatter with you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
Of what's crying within me.
So, when I'm going through my routine,
Please don't be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully, and try to hear what I'm not saying,
And what I'd like to be able to say,
What for survival I need to say,
But what I can't say.

Only you can call me into aliveness,
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
Each time you try to understand because you really care,
My heart begins to grow wings.
Very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings.

With your sympathy and sensitivity,
And your power of understanding,
You can breathe life into me,
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
How you can be a creator of the person that is me if you choose to.
Please choose to.
Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
My long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for,
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls,
In this lies my hope.
My only hope.

Who am I, you may wonder.
II am someone you know very well,
I am a hurting member of your family,
I am the hurting person sitting beside you in this room,
I am every person you meet on the street.
Please don't believe my mask,
Please come behind it to glimpse the real me.
Please speak to me, share a little of yourself with me,
At least recognize me.
Please.
Because you care.

Condensed and modified by Gilbert Wrenn

Mother Teresa

It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home.
Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.

On the street...

On the street I saw a naked child, hungry and shivering in the cold.
I became angry and said to God, "Why do you permit this? Why don't you do something?"
For a while God said nothing. That night he replied.
He said, "I certainly did something. I made you."
Anonymous

A happy man...

If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi desert. He will not be striving for it as a goal itself. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of the day.

W. Beran Wolfe

I expect to pass...

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show for any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

SEEING

They took away what should have been my eyes,
(But I remembered Milton's Paradise)
They took away what should have been my ears,
(Beethoven came and wiped away my tears)
They took away what should have been my tongue,
(But I had talked with God when I was young)
He would not let them take away my soul,
Possessing that, I still possess the whole.

Helen Keller

A thought for the Holy Week...

Preach the Gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words.

St. Francis of Assisi

The Boy

A lad stood there, as I opened the door,
whom I thought I'd seen somewhere before.
"What do you want, my boy?" said I,
as he gazed at me with a puzzled eye.
"Excuse me," he said, "for troubling you;
I'm seeking a friend that I once knew.
You look like him, you bear his name,
but now I see you're not the same.
He used to live at this address,
but he has moved away, I guess."
And turning away, he left my place
with disappointment in his face.
With a "Good-bye, sir," he closed the gate,
and left me there disconsolate.
And then I heard, as strange it seems,
a voice I'd heard in my youthful dreams.
An inner voice, that said to me:
"That boy is the boy you used to be!
His wistful heart has a pang within,
for he's seeking the man you might have been!"

Andrew R. Marker

Courage

There are too many people praying
for mountains of difficulty to be removed,
when what they really need is courage to climb them.

Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Reinhold Niebuhr

God's Boxes of Love

I have in my hands two boxes
Which God gave me to hold
He said, "Put all your sorrows in the black,
And all your joys in the gold."
I heeded His words, and in the two boxes
Both my joys and sorrows I store
But though the gold became heavier each day
The black was as light as before
With curiosity, I opened the black
I wanted to find out why
And I saw, in the base of the box, a hole
Which my sorrows had fallen out by
I showed the hole to God, and mused aloud,
"I wonder where my sorrows could be."
He smiled a gentle smile at me.
"My child, they're all here with me."
I asked, "God, why give me the boxes,
Why the gold, and the black with the hole?"
"My child, the gold is for you to count your blessings,
the black is for you to let go."

Life ...

Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there...to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson or help figure out who you are or who you want to become. You never know who these people may be but when you lock eyes with them, you know that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way.

And sometimes things happen to you at the time that may seem horrible, painful and unfair, but in reflection you realize that without overcoming those obstacles you would have never realized your potential, strength, will power or heart.

Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without these small tests, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere. Safe and comfortable but dull and utterly pointless.

The people you meet affect your life. The successes and downfalls that you experience can create who you are, and the bad experiences can be learned from. In fact, they are probably the most poignant and important ones.

If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart, forgive them because they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart to.
If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and open your heart and eyes to little things.
Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again.
Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen.
Let yourself fall in love, break free and set your sights high.
Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you.
Create your own life and then go out and live it.