A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid
of the branch breaking because
its trust is not in the branch
but in its own God-given wings.
Always believe in yourself.
~Anonymous

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, Or being hated,
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—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’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
~Excerpted lines from the poem, IF, by
British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. ~Philippians 4:13  ✝

**Bird image found on Pixabay; text image via the Internet; collage by Natalie