When we feel we have nothing left to give and we are sure that the 'song has ended' when our day seems over and the shadows fall and the darkness of night has descended where can we go to find the strength to valiantly keep on trying where can we find the hand that will dry the tears that the heart is crying there's but one place to go and that is  good and dropping all pretence and pride we can pour out our problems without restraint and gain strength with him at our side and together we stand at life's crossroads and view what we think is the end but god has a much bigger vision and he tells us it's only a bend for the road goes on and is smoother and the 'pause in the song' is a rest and the part that's unsung and unfinished is the sweetest and richest and best so rest and relax and grow stronger let go and let god share your load your work is not finished or ended you've just come to 'a bend in the road.'

 

DROP A PEBBLE

Drop a pebble in the water; just a splash and it is gone.
But there's half-a-hundred ripples, circling on and on and on,
Spreading, spreading from the center, flowing on out to the sea.
And there is no way of telling where the end is going to be.

Drop a pebble in the water; in a minute you forget.
But there's little waves a-flowing and there's ripples circling yet.
And those little waves a-flowing to a great big wave have grown.
You've disturbed a mighty river just by dropping in a stone.

Drop an unkind word or careless; in a minute it is gone.
But there's half-a-hundred ripples circling on and on and on.
They keep spreading, spreading, spreading from the center as they go.
And there's no way to stop them, once you've started them to flow.

Drop an unkind word, or careless; in a minute you forget.
But there's little waves a-flowing, and there's ripples circling yet.
And perhaps in some sad heart a mighty wave of tears you've stirred.
And disturbed a life was happy ere you dropped that unkind word.

Drop a word of cheer and kindness; just a flash and it is gone.
But there's half-a-hundred ripples circling on and on and on,
Bearing hope and joy and comfort on each splashing, dashing wave.
Till you wouldn't believe the volume of the one kind word you gave.

Drop a word of cheer and kindness; in a minute you forget.
But there's gladness still a-swelling, and there's joy a-circling yet.
And you've rolled a wave of comfort whose sweet music can be heard.
Over miles and miles of water just by dropping one kind word.

~~By James W. Foley.~~

MY ONLY GUARANTEE 

 

Accept me as I am -

I have no guarantee.

A claim to perfection I have not.

Perfect I cannot be.

I, like you.....am human.

Prone to make mistakes.

Failure is not a character flaw,

Just a part of the human makeup.

I live, I laugh and I also learn.

My knowledge is incomplete.

I am searching all the time, in waking hours as well as sleep.

I have a long road to travel, as well as you do.

We learn our lessons on the way.

Wisdom we shall accrue.

Accept me as I am Because I am ....me.

And You are you. No one like me in the world.

That is my only guarantee.

 

TRY AGAIN

 

William Hickson

 

Tis a lesson you should heed,

Try Again;

If at first you don't succeed,

Try again.

Then your courage should appear,

For if you will persevere,

You will conquer, never fear, 

Try again.

If you would at last prevail,

Try again.

If we strive, 'tis no disgrace

Though we did not win the race;

What should we do in that case?

Try again.

If you find your task is hard. 

Try again;

All that other folk can do,

Why with patience, may not you?

Only keep this rule in view,

Try again.

I am responsible for what I see I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked. I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt I am never upset for the reason I think Fear is not justified in any form. only my condemnation injures me. Forgiveness is the key to happiness !

****

 

IN FLANDERS FIELD

 

by John McCrae

 

In Flanders field the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row by row,

That mark our place, and in the sky

the larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunsets glow,

loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders field.

 

Take up our quarrel with the foe;

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch' be yours to hold it high

If we should break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders field.

 

AFTER 60 YEARS

 

I'm pensioned __ well

I must not mind:

The best is not

Always behind,

Maybe that my remaining years

Will bring new songs,

New sighs, new tears.

But if God wills.

And I will too,

Much et remains For me to do.

and bird and beast

And flowers and star

As  ever my 

Companions are

I'm pensioned well__

I must not mind:

The best is not not

Always behind.

****

NEARER TO THEE

 

Sarah Flower Adams

 

Nearer to God, to Thee,

Nearer to thee;

E'en though it be a cross

That raises me;

Still all my song shall be,

Nearer, to God to Thee

Nearer to God

 

Though, like the wanderer,

The sun gone down,

Darkness comes over me,

My rest is a stone;

Yet  in my dreams I'd be

Nearer to God, to Thee

Nearer to Thee.

 

Let my way appear,

Steps unto Heaven,

All that thou sendest me in mercy given,

Angels to beckon me

Nearer, to God to Thee,

Nearer to Thee.

Then, with my walking thoughts

 Bright with Thy praise,

Out of my stony grief's

Bet-el I'll raise;

So my woes to be

Nearer to God, to Thee,

Nearer to Thee.

 

****

 

WISHING

 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 

Do you wish the world were better?

Let me tell you what to do:

Set a watch upon your actions,

Keep them always straight and true;

Let your thoughts be clean and high:

Of  the sphere you occupy.

 

Do you wish the world was wiser?

Well, suppose you make a start

By accumulating wisdom 

In the scrapbook of your heart.

Do not waste one page on folly;

Live to learn, and learn to live.

If you want to give men knowledge

You must get it ere you give.

 

Do you wish the world were happy?

Then remember day by day

Just to scatter seeds of kindness

as you pass along the way:

For the pleasures of many

May be oft times  traced to one,

As the hand that plants an acorn

Shelters armies from the sun.

**

To wish you a perfectly marvellous day
with everything wonderful going your way.

 

***

Florence Nightingale

 

Whene'er noble deed is wrought,

Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,

Our hearts, in glad surprise,

To higher levels rise.

 

The tidal wave of deeper souls

Into our inmost being rolls,

And lifts us unawares

Out of all meaner cares.

 

Honour to those whose words or deeds

Thus thought I, as by daily needs

and by their overflow

Raise us from what is low!

 

Thus thought I, as by night I read

Of great army of the dead,

The trenches cold and damp,

The starved and frozen camp-

 

The wounded from the battle-plain

In dreary hospitals of pain,

The cheerless corridors,

The cold and stony floors.

 

Lo! in the house of misery

A lady with a lamp I see

Pass through the glimmering gloom

And flit from room to room.

 

And show, as in a dream of bliss

The speechless sufferer turns to kiss

Her shadow, as it falls

Upon the darkening walls.

 

As if a door in heaven should be

Opened and close suddenly,

The vision came and went

The light its rays shall cast

From portals of the past.

 

A Lady with a Lamp shall stand

In great history of the land,

A noble type of good,

Heroic womanhood.

by William Wordsworth Longfellow

 

**********

 

MY SHIPS

 

If all the ships I have at sea

Should come a-sailing home to me,

Ah, well! the harbour could not hold

So many sails as there would be

If all my ships came in from sea.

 

If half my ships came home from sea

And brought   their precious freight to me,

Ah. well! I should have wealth as great

As any king who sits in state;

So riches that would be

In half my ships now out to sea.

If just one ship I have at sea

Should come a-sailing home to me,

Ah, well! the storm-clouds then might frown;

For it the others all went down

Still rich  and proud and glad I'd be

If that one ship came back to me,

If that one ship came back to me,

Weighed down with gems and wealth untold,

With glory, honours, riches, gold;

The poorest soul  on earth I'd be

If that one ship came not to me.

O skies, be clam! O winds, blow free

Blow all my ships safe home to me!

But if thou sendest home a- wrack

to never more come sailing back,

Send any-all that  skim the sea,

But bring my love-ship home to me.

 

by  Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

 

**********

 

SPEAK GENTLY

 

Speak gently! It is better far

To rule by lover than fear,

Speak gently-let not harsh words mar

The good we might do here!

Speak gently! Love doth whisper low

The3 vows that rue hearts bind;

And gently Friendship accents flow,

Affection voice is kind.

 

Speak gently to the little child!

Its love be sure to gain;

Teach it in accents soft and mild:

It may not long remain.

 

Speak gently to the young, for they

Will have enough to bear;

Pass through life as best they may,

'Tis full of anxious care!

 

Speak gently, kindly, to the poor;

Let no harsh tone be heard;

They have enough they must endure

Without an unkind word.

Speak gently to the erring-know

They may have toiled in vain;

Perchance unkindness mad them so!

Oh! win them back again.

 

*********

IF

 

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are loosing theirs and blaming it on you,

But make allowances for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,

Or be lied about, and don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give away to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream-and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you have spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch things you gave to life be broken,

And stoop and build them up with worn-out tools,

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it in one turn of pitch-and -toss,

And lose and start again at the beginnings,

And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve sinew

To serve your turn long after they have gone,

And so hold when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk to crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch;

It neither foes or loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds worth of distance run;

Yours is Earth and everything that 's in it,

And -which is more-you'll be a man, my son.

 

by Rudyard Kipling

 

**********

 

WHAT I LIVE FOR

 

I live for those who love me,

Whose hearts are are kind and true;

For the heaven that smiles above me,

And waits my spirit too;

For all human ties that bind me,

For the task that God assigned me,

For the bright hopes left behind me,

And the good that I can do.

 

I live to learn their story,

Who suffered for my sake;

To emulate their glory,

And follow in their wake;

Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages,

The noble of all ages,

Whose deeds crown history's pages,

And time's great volume make.

 

I live to hold Communion

With all that is divine;

To feel their is a union

Twix Nature's heart and mine;

To profit by affliction,

Reap truths from fields of fiction,

Grow wiser from conviction

And to for fill each grand design.

 

I live to hail the season,

By gifted mind foretold,

When men shall live by reason,

And not alone by gold;

When man to man united,

And every wrong thing righted,

The whole world shall be lighted

As Eden was of old.

 

I live for those who love me,

For those who know me true;

For the heaven that smiles above me,

And waits my spirit too;

For the cause that lacks assistance,

For the wrong that needs resistance,

For the future in the distance,.

And the good that I can do.

by George Linnacus Banks.

 

************

YOU NEVER CAN TELL

 

You never can tell when you send a word,

Like an arrow shot from a bow

By an Archer blind, be it cruel or kind,

Just where it may chance to go,

It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend,

Tipped with it's poison or balm;

To a strangers heart in life's great mart

It may carry its pain or it's calm.

 

You never can tell when you do an act

Just what the result may be;

But with every seed you are sowing a seed

Though the harvest you may not see

Each kindly act is an acorn dropped

In God's productive soil;

You may not know, but the tree shall grow,

With shelter for those who toil.

 

You never can tell what your thoughts will do

In bringing you hate or love;

For thoughts are things, and their airy wings

Are swifter than a dove.

The follow the law of the universe

Each thing must create its kind;

And they speed o'er the track to bring you back

Whatever went out of your mind.

 

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 

*****

 

GOD MOVES IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS

 

God moves in a mysterious way

His wonder to perform

He plants his footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.

 

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never failings

He treasure up his bright designs,

And works his sovereign will

 

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;

Ye clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break

In blessing on your head

 

Judge not by the Lord by feeble sense,

Unfolding every hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,

But sweet will be the flower.

 

Blind unbelief is sure to err

And scan his work in vain:

God and his own interpreter

And he will make it plain.

 

By William Cowper.

 

*************

 

TODAY

 

Let me today do something that shall take

A little sadness from the worlds' vast store

And may I be so flavoured as to make

Of joy's too scanty sum a little more.

 

Let me not hurt any selfish deed

Of thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend,

Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need

Or sin by silence where I should defend.

 

However meagre be my worldly wealth,

Let me give something that shall aid my kind-

A word of courage, or thought of health,

Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.

 

Let me tonight look back across the span

'Twix dawn and dark, and to my conscience say:

Because of some good act to beast or man

The world is better that I lived today'

 

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

 

**********

 

LET SOMETHING GOOD BE SAID

 

When over the fair fame of friend or foe

The shadow of disgrace shall fall; instead

Of words of blame, or proof of thus so,

Lets something good be said.

 

Forget not that no fellow- being yet

May fall so low but love may lift his head;

Even the cheek of shame with tears is wt

If something good is said.

 

No generous heat may vainly turn aside

In way so sympathy; no soul so dead

But may awaken strong and gloried

If something good is said.

And so I charge ye, by the thorny crown,

And by your own soul's hope of fair renown,

Let something good be said.

 

by James Whitcomb Riley.