Encouragement 15 Days until Christmas

“Correction does much, but encouragement does more.”

Johann Wolfgang

Encourage where you can!

Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday....16 days until Christmas

“I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.”

William Allen White

Just love the day and your yesterdays will be better, and your tomorrows you can look forward to.

Learning....18 Days until Christmas

I've learned that we don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.

I've learned that no matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.

I've learned that true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. The same goes for true love.

I've learned that you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.

I've learned that it's taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.

I've learned that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.

I've learned that you can keep going long after you can't.

I've learned that we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.

I've learned that either you control your attitude or it controls you.

Books:  How to loose all your friends, a puffin book by, Nancy Carlson

Book:   Forgiving the Unforgivable , by, David A. Stoop
Book:   Eat, Pray, Love: One Womans Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, by, Elizabeth Gilbert
Book:  Words...Loving Emotions, Poems to Awaken the Soul.  By, Pittershawn Palmer 

 

Coming alive....17 Days Until Christmas

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

~ Harold Whitman (Is a fictional name....no one know's who really said this)

This quote sometimes is confused with Howard Thurman Whitman (1899 - April 10, 1981) was an influential American author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader. He was Dean of Theology and the chapels at Howard University and Boston University for more than two decades, wrote 20 books, and in 1944 helped found the first racially integrated, multicultural church in the United States.

However...Howard Thurman Whitman did say this,"In the conflicts between man and man, between group and group, between nation and nation, the loneliness of the seeker for community is sometimes unendurable. The radical tension between good and evil, as man sees it and feels it, does not have the last word about the meaning of life and the nature of existence. There is a spirit in man and in the world working always against the thing that destroys and lays waste. Always he must know that the contradictions of life are not final or ultimate; he must distinguish between failure and a many-sided awareness so that he will not mistake conformity for harmony, uniformity for synthesis. He will know that for all men to be alike is the death of life in man, and yet perceive harmony that transcends all diversities and in which diversity finds its richness and significance." From The Search For Common Ground; An Inquiry Into The Basis Of Man's Experience Of Community.

Book: Feeding the Animals: Originally published in 1901.
Book:  Community:  The structure of belonging
Book: The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature by Jung
Book:  Creating Harmony: Conflict Resolution in Community

Miracles...19 Days until Christmas

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is. "

Albert Einstein

Bitterness 20 Days Until Christmas

When the days are tough, and bitterness flares up into your heart...
know that it is the bitterness that can tell you that you need to soften your heart!

If we did not have tears, then we would not know laughter.
If we did not have bouts of bitterness, then we would not know sweetness.

We can use our lifes lessons to help us grow.
We can learn to embrace bitterness to make us stronger.

Patience is bitter, but it bears sweet fruit.
Turkish proverb

Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hate. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness.
William Author Ward

It is a simple but sometimes forgotten truth that the greatest enemy to present joy and high hopes is the cultivation of retrospective bitterness.
Robert G. Menzines

Who has never tasted what is bitter does not know what is sweet.
German Proverb

When you've been wronged. Moving from Bitterness to Forgiveness, by Erwin W. Lutzer

The Root of Bitterness: Documents of the Social History of American Women

In Bitterness and Tears:Andrew Jackson's Destruction of the Creeks and Seminoles

The Lost Art of Fogiving. Stories of healing from the Cancer of Bitterness. By, Johann Christoph Arnold