Tag Archives: Questions

1196. Every man has his secret sorrows of which the world knows not… ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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I want to weep, she thought.
I want to be comforted.
I’m so tired of being strong.
I want to be foolish and 
frightened for once.
Just for a small while,
that’s all….a day…..an hour.
~George R.R. Martin

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My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He weaveth steadily.
Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.
Not ’til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas
And reveal the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
In the weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned
He knows, He loves, He cares;
Nothing this truth can dim.
He gives the very best to those
Who leave the choice to Him.
~Corrie ten Boom

According to mom, I started walking around the age of 9 months, and a week or so after that she had to take me in for a check up with the doctor. During that visit he gave me one of those routine immunizations in my little derriere. When I got home that day, I went to take a few steps and fell landing right on the area of the injection. It hurt so much that mom said it was a few days before I’d try to walk again. The image above is a photo she took that day as I sat contemplating my sorrow. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that it has been my lot in life to deal with lots of physical pain, and from time to time I have to endure periods when it’s more prolonged and intense than usual. Sadly I can make no more sense of pain and suffering now than I did that day in the photo. Though I am a strong person, as of late there have been lots of tears, lots of doubts, lots of questions, and lots of needs for comfort. So tonight, I’m taking Shakespeare’s advice from MACBETH to see if that helps, “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.”

My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to Your word. ~Psalm 199:28  ✝

1141. At the end of the day, love and compassion will win. ~Terry Waite

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The thing is, at the end of the day
you still have to face yourself.
~Dave Pelzer

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At the End of the Day: A Mirror of Questions
What dreams did I create last night?
Where did my eyes linger today?
Where was I blind?
Where was I hurt without anyone noticing?
What did I learn today?
What did I read?
What new thoughts visited me?
What differences did I notice in those closest to me?
Whom did I neglect?
Where did I neglect myself?
What did I begin today that might endure?
How were my conversations?
What did I do today for the poor and the excluded?
Where could I have exposed myself to the risk of something different?
Where did I allow myself to receive love?
With whom today did I feel most myself?
What reached me today?
How deeply did it imprint?
Who saw me today?
What visitations had I from the past and from the future?
What did I avoid today?
From the evidence – why was I given this day?
~Excerpted lines by John O’Donohue

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! ~2 Corinthians 9:10-15  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

306. What is there beyond knowing that keeps calling to me? ~Mary Oliver

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Go to your bosom:
Knock there,
and ask your heart
what it doth know?
~William Shakespeare

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We run; we stumble; we fall; we get up; and somehow we find the stamina to move on again.  That same scenario plays over and over again in our lives; so what is it that get us back up on our feet willing to do it all over again?

Is it the hope of wealth or at least sufficiently comfortable numbers in our checkbooks and bank accounts to buy whatever we need and/or want?

Is it the hope of owning a nice car, having a roof over our head, finding food in the pantry, or clothes to put on our backs?

Is it being able to travel wherever and whenever we want?

Is it the hope that scientific theories will one day answer the questions that disturb us?

Or it is instead because we seem to know somehow that a divine power much bigger and smarter has set all this in motion for a reason and that He cheers us on in the face of troubling realities and difficulties?

And isn’t it also because His imploring little voice within us encourages us to finish the race set before us because that is what we are really here for?

At some point in time, do we not begin to perceive divine threads in the fabric of life?

Do not these threads in the tapestry gather together enough gladness and joy so we that can find the strength and courage to face trials, disappointments, and defeats?

Isn’t it the perception of these divine threads that keeps us willing to run again, stumble again, to fall again, to get up again, and to move on again even when we are hurting or become disheartened or grow weary?

Do we not come to realize that life is not just an end in itself but instead a preparation for something more, even if the something more is not clearly defined?  And as strange as it may seem, after a while in our heart of hearts do we not become aware of a sense of awe of and growing gratitude for the very “race” that often torments us?

Life just has to be worth more than material gain, more than temporal pleasures, more than the noisy, senseless endurance of the perverse, violent, and/or mundane.  In moments of utter silence and stillness in an emptied mind we can, can’t we, hear that reassuring little voice that calls to us urging us on because all this isn’t some pointless game, a worthless hour upon a harsh stage, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  And does not what our heart “doth know” tell us something of a loving Creator’s sacred purpose.  Don’t we do it because as Marianne Williamson says, “We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.”

But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.  ~Exodus 9:16   ✝

**Images via Pinterest

232. Adopt the pace of nature:  her secret is patience.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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How good it is to center down!  To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by!  The streets of our mind seethe with endless traffic; our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences, while something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull.  We look at ourselves in this waiting moment–the kinds of people we are.  The questions persist; what are we doing with our lives? What is the end of our doings?  Where is my treasure?  As we listen, floating up through all the jangling echoes of our turbulence, there is a sound of another kind–a deeper note which only the stillness of the heart makes clear.  It moves directly to the core of our being.  Our questions are answered, our spirits are refreshed, and we move back into the traffic of our daily rounds with the peace of the Eternal in our step.  How good it is to center down!  ~Excerpt from For the Inward Journey by Howard Thurman, American author, philosopher, theologian, educator

Happy is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors.  ~Proverbs 8:34  ✝