Once there was a man whose life was one of misery.  The days were
cloudy, and the nights were long.  Henry didn't want to unhappy, but
he was.  With the passing of the years, his life had changed.  His children were grown.  The neighborhood was different.  The city seemed harsher.  He was unhappy.  He decided to ask his pastor what was wrong.  "Am I unhappy for some sin I have committed?"  "Yes,  the wise pastor replied.  "You have sinned."  "And what might that sin be?"  "Ignorance," came 
the reply.  "The sin of ignorance.  One of your neighbors is the Messiah in disguise, and you have not seen him." The old man left the office stunned.  "The Messiah is one of my neighbors?"  He began to think who it might be.  Tom the butcher? No, he's too lazy.  Mary, my cousin down the street? 
No, too much pride.  Aaron the paperboy?  No, too indulgent.  The man was confounded.  Every person he knew had defects.  But one was the Messiah.  He began to look for Him.  He began to notice things he hadn't seen.  The grocer often carried sacks to the cars of older ladies.  Maybe
he is the Messiah.  The officer at the corner always had a smile for the
kids.  Could it be?  And the young couple who'd moved in next door. 
How kind they are to their cat.  Maybe one of them... With time he saw things in people he'd never seen.  And with time his outlook began to change.  The bounce returned to his step.  His eyes took on a friendly sparkle.  When others spoke he listened.  After all, he might be listening 
to theMessiah.  When anyone asked for help, he responded; after all this might be the Messiah needing assistance.  The change of attitude was 
so significant that someone asked him why he was so happy.  "I don't know," he answered.  "All I know is that things changed when I started looking for God."

Dear Ruth,
I'm going to be in your neighborhood Saturday afternoon and I'd like to stop by for a visit. 
Love Always,  Jesus

Her hands were shaking as she placed the letter on the table.  "Why would the Lord want to visit me?  I'm nobody special.  I don't have anything to offer."  With that thought, Ruth remembered her empty kitchen cabinets. "Oh my goodness, I really don't have anything to offer.  I'll have to run down to the store and buy something for dinner."  She reached for her purse and counted out its contents.  Five dollars and forty cents.  "Well,  I can get some
bread and cold cuts, at least."  She threw on her coat and hurried out the door.  A loaf of french bread, a half-pound of sliced turkey, and a carton of milk...leaving Ruth with grand total of twelve cents to last her until Monday.  Nonetheless, she felt as she headed home,
her meager offerings tucked under her arm.

"Hey lady, can you help us, lady?"  Ruth had been so absorbed in her dinner plans, she hadn't even noticed two figures huddled in the alleyway. A man and a woman, both of them dressed in little more than rags. "Look lady, I ain't got a job, ya know, and my wife and I have been living out here on the street, and, well, now it's getting cold and we're getting kinda hungry and, well, if you could help us, lady, we'd really appreciate it."  Ruth looked at them both. 
They were dirty, they smelled bad and, frankly, she was certain that they could get some kind of work if they really wanted  to.  "Sir, I'd like to help you, but I'm a poor woman myself.  All I have is a few  cold cuts and some bread, and I'm having an important guest for dinner
tonight and I was planning on serving that to Him."  "Yeah, well, OK lady, I understand.
Thanks anyway."  The man put his arm around the woman's  shoulders, turned and headed back into the alley.  As she watched them leave, Ruth felt a familiar twinge in her heart.
"Sir, wait!"  The couple stopped and turned as she ran down the alley after them."Look, why don't you take this food.  I'll figure out something else to serve my guest."  She handed the
man her grocery bag.

"Thank you lady.  Thank you very much!"  "Yes, thank you!"  It was the man's wife, and Ruth could see now that she was shivering.  "You know, I've got another coat at home.  Here, why don't you take this one."  Ruth unbuttoned her jacket and slipped it over the woman's shoulders.  Then smiling, she turned and walked back to the street...without her coat and
with nothing to serve her guest.

"Thank you lady!  Thank you  very much!"  Ruth was chilled by the time she reached her front door, and  worried too.  The Lord was coming to visit and she didn't have anything to offer Him.  She fumbled through her purse for her key.  But as she did, she noticed another 
envelope in her mailbox.  "That's odd. The mailman doesn't usually come twice in one day." 
She took the envelope out of the box and opened it.

Dear Ruth,
It was so good to see you again.  Thank you for the lovely meal.  And thank you, too, for the beautiful coat. Love Always Jesus

The air was still cold, but even without her coat, Ruth no longer noticed.

 I was walking down life's highway a long time ago.  One day I saw a sign that read,
HEAVEN'S GROCERY STORE.
 As I got a little closer the door came open wide, And when I came to myself I was standing inside.  I saw a host of ANGELS. They  were standing everywhere.  One handed me a basket and said, "My Child shop with care."  Everything a Christian needed was in that grocery
store.  And all you couldn't carry, you could come back the next day for more.  First, I got
some PATIENCE. LOVE was in the same row.  Further down was UNDERSTANDING: you need that everywhere you go.  I got a box or two of WISDOM, a bag or two of FAITH.  I just
couldn't miss the HOLY GHOST, for it was all over the place.  I stopped to get some
STRENGTH and COURAGE to help me run this race.  By then my basket  was getting full,
 But I remembered I needed some GRACE. I didn't forget SALVATION, for SALVATION was
free,  So I tried to get enough of that to save both you and me.  Then I started up to the counter to pay my grocery bill,  For I thought I had everything to do the MASTER'S will.
 As I went up the aisle, I saw PRAYER: and I just had to put that in, For I knew when I
stepped outside, I would run into sin.  PEACE AND JOY were plentiful; they were last on 
the shelf.  SONG and PRAISE were hanging near, so I just helped myself.  Then I said to the angel, "Now, how much do I owe?"  He smiled and said, "Just take them everywhere you
go."  Again, I smiled and said, "How much do I really owe?"
 He smiled again and said, "MY CHILD,
 JESUS PAID YOUR BILL A LONG, LONG TIME AGO."

 ALL THINGS WHATSOEVER YOU SHALL ASK IN PRAYER, BELIEVING, YOU SHALL
 RECEIVE. (MATTHEW 21:22)

If today were the last of all days
Would it change how you feel, who you are?
Would you rise for a moment above all your fears
Become one with the moon and the stars?

Would you like what you see looking down?
Did you give everything that you could?
Have you done everything that you wanted to? 
Is there still so much more that you would do?

Follow your dream to the end of the rainbow
Way beyond one pot of gold.
Open your eyes to the colors around you,
And find the true beauty life holds.

Would you live for the moment, like when you were young.
Time didn't travel so fast.
Be free in the present.
Enjoy the now,
Not tied to a future or past.

You would probably say all you wanted to say.
But doesn't it strike you as strange,
That we'd only begin to start living our lives,
If today were the last of all days.

 My body betrays by thrusting Sleep aside,
 my bed becomes a battle ground for heat and chills,
and other ills;
 But listen body, it's 4 a.m., 
don't you think it ought to subside?

 Breathing rough and shallow,
 I inhale a drug or two,
 swallow a pill and perhaps a liquid goo.

 Patiently I wait for breathing that will ease;
 And, obnoxious coughing, you really now must leave.

 Please Sleep, I tiredly implore,
 knock gently,
 then come swiftly cross my bedroom floor.

 Ninety-nine sheep, ninety eight,
 and on the little sheep roam;
 but really, Sleep, instead of count,
 I think I'd rather snore.

  I knelt to pray but not for long,
  I had too much to do.
  I had to hurry and get to work
  For bills would soon be due.

 So I knelt and said a hurried prayer,
  And jumped up off my knees.
  My Christian duty was now done
  My soul could rest at ease.

  All day long I had no time
  To spread a word of cheer.
  No time to speak of Christ to friends,
  They'd laugh at me I'd fear.

  No time, no time, too much to do,
  That was my constant cry,
  No time to give to souls in need
  But at last the time the time to die.

  I went before the Lord,
  I came, I stood with downcast eyes.
  For in his hands God held a book;
  It was the book of life.

  God looked into his book and said
  "Your name I cannot find.
  I once was going to write it down...
  But never found the time"

 The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he
 could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter
 said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in
 his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior
 materials.  It was an unfortunate way to end his career.

 When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect
 the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter.
 "This is your house," he said, "my gift to you."

 What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building
 his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to
 live in the home he had built none too well.

 So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting
 rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best.
 At important points we do not give the job our best effort.
 Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find
 that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized,
 we would have done it differently.

 Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your
 house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall.
 Build wisely.  It is the only life you will ever build. Even if you live it
 for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously and
 with dignity. Knowing we are all given resources from God with which
to work, we are still responsible for what we do with those resources . .
 .
 life becomes a "Do-it-yourself " project.

 Who could say it more clearly?  Your life today is the result of your
 attitudes and choices in the past. Your life tomorrow will be the
 result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.

 ~~author unknown~~

 The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one 
more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see
that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior
 materials.  It was an unfortunate way to end his career.

 When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the
contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter.  "This is your house," he said, 
"my gift to you."

 What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he
would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none
too well.

 So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting  rather than acting, willing
to put up less than the best.  At important points we do not give the job our best effort.
 Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living
in the house we have built. If we had realized, we would have done it differently.

 Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely.  It is the only life you will ever build. Even if
you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity. Knowing we are all given resources from God with which to work, we are still responsible
for what we do with those resources . .
 .
 life becomes a "Do-it-yourself " project.

 Who could say it more clearly?  Your life today is the result of your attitudes and choices
in the past. Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.

 ~~author unknown~~
.

When you see geese flying along in "V" formation, you
might consider what science has discovered as to why they fly that way. As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in
"V" formation, the whole flock adds at least 71 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.
People who share a common direction and sense of
community can get where they are going more quickly and easily because they are traveling on the thrust of 
one another.
When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird in front.
If we have as much sense as a goose, we will stay in
formation with those people who are headed the same way we are.
When the head goose gets tired, it rotates back in the
wing and another goose flies point.
It is sensible to take turns doing demanding jobs,
whether with people or with geese flying south.
Geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to
keep up their speed.
What messages do we give when we honk from behind?
Finally - and this is important - when a goose gets sick 
or is wounded by gunshot, and falls out of formation,
two other geese fall out with that goose and follow it
down to lend help and protection. They stay with the fallen goose until it is able to fly or until it dies, and only then do they launch out on their own, or with another formation to catch up with their group.  If we have the sense of a goose, we will stand by each other like that.

What if God Had an Answering Machine?
Imagine praying and hearing this:
Thank you for calling My Father's house.
Please select one of the following four options:
Press 1 for requests.
Press 2 for thanksgiving
Press 3 for complaints.
For all other inquiries, press 4

What if God used the familiar excuse: 
All of the angels are: helping other customers right now. Please stay on the line.
Your call will be answered in the order it was received.
Can you imagine getting these kinds of responses as you callon God in prayer?
If you'd like to speak with Gabriel, press 1.
 For Michael, press 2.
 For any other angel, press 3.
 If you'd like King David to sing a psalm for you, press 6.

To find out if your relative is here, enter his/her date of
death and listen for the list that follows.
For reservations at My Father's House, 
simply press the letters
 J-O-H-N, followed by the number 3-16

For answers to nagging questions about dinosaurs,
the age of the earth and where Noah's ark is,
wait until you get here!

Our computers show 
that you have called once today already.
Please hang up immediately.

This office is closed for the weekend. 
Please call again Monday.

Thank God, you can't call Him too often!!! 
You only need to ring once and God hears you.
Because of Jesus, you never get a busy signal.

God takes each call and knows each caller personally.   When you call and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help and He will say:
Here am I!

It seems that the infection had destroyed most of Gino's liver.  His doctor had the unpleasant task of explaining to him that it would not regenerate itself.  Gino's health would always be fragile, and for the rest of his life he would have to be hooked up to a machine that would do for him what his
devastated liver could not.

With the disability money received from the state, Gino was able to rent a tiny apartment.  his many friends pitched in to do his shopping and cooking and running his errands.  Bedridden and permanently attached by tubes to a machine that had to be wheeled along with him on trips to the bathroom, this
once-athletic young man tried to keep his spirits up despite the knowledge that he was going to spend the rest of his life as an invalid.

Gino had a lot of time on his hands.  In an effort to relieve his boredom, one of his friends brought him 
the book "Creative Visualization" by Shakti Gawain.In it, Gawain describe and ancient spiritual 
technique for changing reality.  She said that you could actually heal yourself by altering the way
you pictured things in your mind.  Glad to fill his tedious days and sleepless nights with constructive activity, Gino began to visualize the healing of his liver.

"I used to lie there and work on my liver one cell at a time," Gino told me years later when he was attending the graduate school where I taught. "it was too damned depressing to focus on the whole
thing at once. My liver appeared in my mind's eye like this big, black blob--all discolored and flabby
with just this one little area of healthy pink tissue."

"So I would lie in bed imagining myself with a teensy-weeny little toothbrush,  scrubbing the crud of
a single cell, rinsing it careful, and gently massaging in magical medicines.  I don't know that I 
seriously thought it was going to help, but it was something to do.  There is just so much television
a person can watch."

As the months wore on, Gino became a little stronger.  He could move about the apartment more 
easily and prepare meals for himself, but he continued to fill his idle hours by mentally tending to his
liver cells.  Sometimes when he was alone, he would even croon to them like a loving father, urging 
the "little guys" to take heart and heal themselves.  And each day the liver in his visualization looked slightly improved.  Little by little, there got to more pink healthy cells and fewer crud-encrusted, 
black ones.

One day as hew stepping out of his tiny kitchen, Gino caught his tubing on the edge of the counter. 
A sudden move on his part, and he felt agonizing pain as the plastic umbilicus was ripped out of his
body.  His doctor had warned that such an eventuality could be fatal, and Gino lost no time in phone
the paramedics.

Gino's doctor met him in the emergency room, looking grim. "I'll have to operate, but I want to do 
some tests first so I know where we stand.  The nurse is going to take you down for some x-rays 
and stuff while I get scrubbed."

The test were quickly competed, and Gino was prepped for surgery.  After ashort wait, however, 
the nurse returned and told him that something had gone wrong with his tests.  They would have 
to be repeated.

Gino was put throughout another battery and again left to wait.  This time it was his doctor who 
appeared with an apologetic expression.  These tests were no good either.  How about one
more round?

However, after the third battery was complete, Gino's doctor strode into his room and eyed him 
with speculation.  He waved the sheaf of results in the airand demanded, "Where the hell did you
get this liver?"

"What" Gino replied weakly.

"This isn't your liver!  I know your liver and this isn't it!"

Gino was nonplused. "What do you mean?  What's wrong?", he asked.

"That's just it!", his physician exclaimed.  "Nothing is wrong!  There isn't a damn thing wrong with
this liver.  You left here five months ago with almost no liver function, and now you show up with 
this perfectly good liver.  And what I want to know is -- how the hell did you do that?"

"You're not going to believe this, Doc," Gino replied, "but it must have been the visualization I've
been doing.  For hours every day I've been visualinzing my liver healing. I guess it did."

Gino was right about one thing.  His doctor never did believe that the visualization could have
worked such a miracle.  Not that he had any other theories to explain how it could have happened.

Gino is now a psychotherapist, helping others to heal themselves by refocusing their thinking.  We 
convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another.  Then 
we are frustrated that the kids aren't old enough and we'll be more content when they are.  After 
that we're frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with.  We will certainly be happy when they 
are out of that stage.  We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or 
her act together, when we get a nicer car, or are able to go on a nice vacation, when we retire. 
The truth is, there's no better time to be happy than right now.  If not now, when?  Your life will 
always be filled with challenges.  It's best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Alfred D. Souza.  He said, "For a long time it had seemed to me
that life was about to begin -- real life.  But there was always some obstacle in the way, something
to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. 
Then life would begin.  At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

 This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness.  Happiness is the way! 
So treasure every moment that you have.  And treasure it more because you shared it with 
someone special, special enough to spend your time . . . and remember that time waits for no
one . . . So stop waiting until you finish school, until you go back to school, until you lose ten 
pounds, until you gain ten pounds, until you have kids, until your kids leave the house, until 
you start work, until you retire, until you get married, until Friday night, until Sunday morning, 
until you get a new car or home, until your car or home is paid off, until  Spring, until summer, 
until fall, until winter, until the first or fifteenth, until your song comes on, until you've had a 
drink -- until you die -- to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy.

 Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

  - Author unknown

  Each of us has such a bank.  Its name is TIME.  Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds.  Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever  of this  you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance.

 It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you.  Each Night it burns the remains of the day. 
If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours.

  There is no going back.  There is no drawing against  "tomorrow". You  must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success!  The clock is running.