Category: Shared Stories

If we want to love our best we must go to the source of love: God. God loves us more than we love ourselves or anyone. His love reaches far beyond what we can imagine. If we want to know how to love and be loved then we must get to know God.

When life gives you a reason to cry, show life that you have 100 reasons to smile. Handle your present with confidence.

At times, when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when actually what God wants is just simple obedience and faith in Him. By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains, but know that it is still God who moves the mountains.

We wanted to send a relative a special letter, asking her to participate in this blog by sharing a story about her own struggles on the road of life and the wisdom she’s gained. But we waited, and now have found out she’s had a heart attack. We are praying for God’s will to be done, and hope that she makes it out of this okay. And we would do anything if we could go back in time and send that letter to her, before it’s too late.

The lesson is to not wait to tell that person you love them, or to tell them you care and that they matter, because tomorrow could be too late.

You say, “I feel all alone”
God says, “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5)

Parable of the burning hut ~
The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.

Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements and to store his few possessions. But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky.

The worst had happened; everything was lost. He was stunned with grief and anger. “God, how could you do this to me!” he cried. Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue him. “How did you know I was here?” asked the weary man of his rescuers. “We saw your smoke signal,” they replied.

It is easy to get discouraged when things are going badly. But we shouldn’t lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of pain and suffering. Remember, next time your little hut is burning to the ground–it just may be a smoke signal that summons The Grace of God.

~origin unknown

As a designer naturally I breeze through a lot of style magazines. My latest was a write up on white paint (one of my favorites, their isn’t much I wouldn’t paint white). I ran across this quote by G. K Chesterton, an English Philosopher. In the article, I was immediately in tune with his take, “white is not a mere absence of color, it is a shining and affirmative thing: as fierce as red, as definite as black.” Never having heard of him, I thought “Ha, he stated my own thoughts so purely, who is this G. K.?”

A week later I ran across another quote by him online with a Christian undertone, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” (Chapter 5, What’s Wrong With The World, 1910) This quote I found relevant and profound in a rather simple way. Because Christian life has largely “been found difficult and left untried” we don’t allow the teachings of Christ to speak to our heart.

Shortly later when surfing one of my favorite essayist’s website, John O’Brien, I noticed he’s featuring a few chapters from Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. It was lengthy and a bit rough considering it was written with references of a past era, but what I found was these same scenarios Chesterton describes exist today. Here’s what he said about secularists: “…they do not destroy orthodoxy; they only destroy political courage and common sense…. The secularists have not wrecked divine things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if that is any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale heaven; but they laid waste the world.” I find this comforting and wonder, why haven’t I heard of this G. K. Chesterton?”

Then the very next day, reading the Notre Dame magazine over lunch I see they’ve done an article on G.K when he was invited to Notre Dame 80 years ago during Prohibition to give several lectures to the students and faculty. Okay, I wonder for the final time “who is this guy and why haven’t I heard of him before?”

I decide to look up this G.K. on Wiki. Turns out we have a lot in common. Both Catholic converts, he was born on May 29th and I April 29th, 100 years apart. And we both have English heritage. G.K. was born in London. But what I then uncover astonished me. President of the American Chesterton Society, Dale Ahlquist, puts it best, “He defended ‘the common man’ and common sense. He defended the poor. He defended the family. He defended beauty. And he defended Christianity and the Catholic Faith. These don’t play well in the classroom, in the media, or in the public arena. And that is probably why he is neglected. The modern world prefers writers who are snobs, who have exotic and bizarre ideas, who glorify decadence, who scoff at Christianity, who deny the dignity of the poor, and who think freedom means no responsibility.”

So now I see better why he’s been obscured. But as I discover more I find he wrote a book called The Everlasting Man, which led a young atheist named C.S. Lewis to become a Christian and his magnitude of writings reached heights of hundreds of books, hundreds of poems, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, with contributions to over 200 other books. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. His writing remains as timely and as timeless today as when it first appeared.

Some of my sisters work in Australia. On a reservation, among the Aborigines, there was an elderly man. I can assure you that you have never seen a situation as difficult as that poor old man’s. He was completely ignored by everyone. His home was disordered and dirty.

I told him, “Please, let me clean your house, wash your clothes, and make your bed.” He answered, “I’m okay like this. Let it be.”

I said again, “You will be still better if you allow me to do it.”

He finally agreed. So I was able to clean his house and wash his clothes. I discovered a beautiful lamp, covered with dust. Only God knows how many years had passed since he last lit it.

I said to him, “Don’t you light your lamp? Don’t you ever use it?”

He answered, “No. No one comes to see me. I have no need to light it. Who would I light it for?”

I asked, “Would you light it every night if the sisters came?”

He replied, “Of course.”

From that day on the sisters committed themselves to visiting him every evening. We cleaned the lamp, and the sisters would light it every evening.

Two years passed. I had completely forgotten that man. He sent this message: “Tell my friend that the light she lit in my life continues to shine still.”

I thought it was a very small thing. We often neglect small things.

And then it is Winter…

You know, time has a way of moving quickly and catching you unaware of the passing years.

It seems just yesterday that I was young, just married and embarking on my new life with my mate. And yet in a way, it seems like eons ago, and I wonder where all the years went. I know that I lived them all…

And I have glimpses of how it was back then and of all my hopes and dreams… But, here it is..the winter of my life and it catches me by surprise.

How did I get here so fast? Where did the years go and where did my babies go? And where did my youth go?

I remember well… seeing older people through the years and thinking that those older people were years away from me and that winter was so far off that I could not fathom it or imagine fully what it would be like…

But, here it is…wife retired and she’s really getting gray…she moves slower and I see an older woman now. She’s in better shape than me… but, I see the great change… Not the one I married who was young and vibrant… but, like me, her age is beginning to show and we are now those older folks that we used to see and never thought we’d be.

Each day now, I find that just getting a shower is a real target for the day! And taking a nap is not a treat anymore…it’s mandatory! Cause if I don’t on my own free will…I just fall asleep where I sit!

And so, now I enter into this new season of my life unprepared for all the aches and pains and the loss of strength and ability to go and do things.

But, at least I know, that though the winter has come, and I’m not sure how long it will last…This I know, that when it’s over…its over…Yes , I have regrets .There are things I wish I hadn’t done and things I should have done. But indeed, there are many things I’m happy to have done. It’s all in a lifetime.

So, if you’re not in your winter yet…let me remind you, that it will be here faster than you think. So, whatever you would like to accomplish in your life please do it quickly!

Life goes by quickly So, do what you can today, because you can never be sure whether this is your winter or not!

You have no promise that you will see all the seasons of your life…so, live for good today and say all the things that you want your loved ones to remember…

“Life is a gift to you. The way you live your life is your gift to those who came after. Make it a fantastic one.”

LIVE IT WELL!!

~author unknown

Just a few days ago a Youtube video (below) surfaced of a homeless man with an amazing radio voice, and now the man has a full time job announcing with the Cleveland Cavaliers and home that the Cavaliers are paying for. Ted said his voice was a gift from God, and now he is blessed with his dreams coming true. View more on this story Here.

The sign Ted held up while homeless read: “I have a God given gift of voice. I’m an ex-radio announcer who has fallen on hard times. Please! Any help will be gratefully appreciated. Thank you and God bless. Happy holidays.”

For more on Ted getting his job and home, click here

continued from Prayer lights my way – Prayer I

A perfect testament on how prayer is sometimes not answered in the way we long for comes from Marcus Grodi, a former pastor and convert to Catholicism, in Surprised by Truth, a book by Patrick Madrid. Grodi writes,

“Sitting quietly in the middle of a dew-covered field waiting for the sun to come up, I read Scripture and meditated on these questions that had been troubling me, placing my worries before the Lord. The Bible warned me not to ‘lean unto my own understanding,’ so I determined to trust in God to guide me.”

He was contemplating three options, leaving the pastorate, taking a position he had been offered as head of a youth ministry, or leave ministry all together and go back to engineering. He mulled over these options asking God to guide his steps. He wanted some tangible sign, something that informed him of God’s direction for him in his life. The quiet moment ended abruptly as a bird flew by and pooped on his head. He was disgusted, closed his Bible and left for home. Was this a divine sign or nature’s way of saying there would be no response from heaven.

Later that day when he told his wife what had transpired she laughed and stated in wisdom “The meaning is clear, Marcus. God is saying, ‘None of the above!'”

He would have preferred a less humiliating sign but realized nothing occurs by accident. Grodi concluded, “I took this as at least a comical hint from God to remain at the ministry.” The situation had been quelled but not solved. The questions that he grappled with eventually led him to discover the Catholic Church and find Jesus at the Eucharist.

“In the designs of Providence there are no mere coincidences,” said Pope John Paul II in 1982 on the first anniversary of the assassination attempt that came within millimeters of ending his life.