PRAYING HANDS

There are hands that help and comfort,
Hands that plan and teach,
Hands that rest and hands that strive
For a goal just out of reach,
Hands that grasp and hands that give,
Hands that work and play,
Friendly hands and loving hands
That soothes life's cares away.
But praying hands are dearest
In the sight of God above
For in their sweet and earnest clasp
Are reverence and love.
No hands can do an unkind act
Nor cause another care
Nor sin against Our Father's love
When they are clasped in prayer.
Author Unknown

I guide you in the way of wisdom and lead
you along straight paths. When you walk, your
steps will not be hampered; when you
run, you will not stumble," says the Lord.
Proverbs 4:11 - 12

Today is a new day Lord, show me the way to walk it. Help me to walk step by step with you. Guide me, inspire me in the way I should go. Thank you for all the opportunities that will come my way. Help me to give love so generously that it becomes a part of who I am and a reflection of who I serve. Amen

Unknown, but not uncharted, tomorrow waits for our arrival - a day designed, a place prepared with tender care by the One who goes before us … Let us walk with faith behind him in the footprints of his love.
Psalm 37:23

Love cannot be forced, love cannot be coaxed and teased. It comes out of Heaven, unasked and unsought.
Pearl Buck

Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God.
Phillips Brooks

To be courageous requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place, and circumstance. It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all. Politics merely furnish one arena which imposes special tests of courage. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient - they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.
John F. Kennedy

Heavenly Father, grant me the faith to place myself completely in Your hands. Let me feel Your presence and guidance. As I extend my hand, let me feel Your reassuring grasp and abundant love. Amen

I see your hand, Lord, in everything around me, and in every aspect of my life. I seek your will. I see your plan, Lord, in all the years behind me, and in the days and years to come - I'll trust you still.
Jeremiah 29:11

My message has been very simple. To live well we must have a faith fit to live with, and a work fit to live for - something to which we can give ourselves and thus get ourselves off our hands. We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us - how we can take it, what we do with it - and that is what really counts in the end. How to take the raw stuff of life and make it a thing of worth and beauty - that is the test of living. Life is an adventure of faith, if we are to be victors over it, not victims of it. Faith in the God above us, faith in the little infinite soul within us, faith in life and in our fellow souls - without faith, the plus quality, we cannot really live.
Joseph Fort Newton

Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
Romans 10:17

Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to here' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
Matthew 17:20

Let there be no limit to what we take to God in prayer, so that there may be no limit to God's reign and rule in all of life. It is far better to ask God for whatever we desire than to play God by deciding on our own what we ought to pray for. That would simply be pious magic all over again, wanting to control God by praying for the right things in a way that is sure to get results. God himself will be the judge; ours is the task of putting everything up to him.
Roger Hazelton

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

Prayer is not a substitute for work; it is a desperate effort to work further and to be efficient beyond the range of one's powers. It is not the lazy who are most inclined to prayer; those pray most who care most, and who having worked hard, find it intolerable to be defeated.
George Santayana

We are not hen's eggs, or bananas, or clothespins, to be counted off by the dozen. Down to the last detail we are all different. Everyone has his own fingerprints. Recognize and rejoice in that endless variety. The white light of the divine purpose streams down from heaven to be broken up by these human prisms into all the colors of the rainbow. Take your own color in the pattern and be just that.
Charles R. Brown

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
Helen Keller

Thank you for the confidence you have given, Lord, that I can tell you what's in my heart and know you will listen - that I can listen with an open heart and know you will speak.
1 Samuel 3:10

In Thee, O Lord, I have put my trust. Let me feel Your hand on my shoulder and awaken me to what I am and help me become the most I can be for You.
Open my heart so that Your love can be extended through me to others. Amen

There are many who want me to tell them of secret ways of becoming perfect and I can only tell them that the sole secret is a hearty love of God, and the only way of attaining that love is by loving. You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so you learn to love God and man by loving. Begin as a mere apprentice and the very power of love will lead you on to become a master of the art.
St. Francis De Sales

How to I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breath and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my chiildhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Always keep your eyes open for the little task, because it is the little task that is important to Jesus Christ. The future of the Kingdom of God does not depend on the enthusiasm of this or that powerful person; those great ones are necessary too, but it is equally necessary to have a great number of little people who will do a little thing in the service of Christ.

The great flowing rivers represent only a small part of all the water that is necessary to nourish and sustain the earth. Beside the flowing river there is water in the earth - the subterranean water - and there are the little streams which continually enter the river and feed it and prevent it from sinking into the earth. Without these other waters - the silent hidden subterranean waters and the trickling streams - the great river could no longer flow. Thus it is with the little tasks to be fulfilled by us all.
Albert Schweitzer

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars; to be satisfied with your possessions but not content with yourself until you have made the best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbor's except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ; and to spend as much time as you can with body and spirit in God's out-of-doors - these are little guidepaths to peace.
Henry Van Dyek

Each new day is an opportunity to start all over again…to cleanse our minds and hearts anew and to clarify our vision. And let us not clutter up today with the leavings of other days.
Author Unknown

Things come to pass as they do and when they do because the time is ripe. Events come into being because the world is ready for them. Nothing comes unannounced or unexpected. If we could interpret accurately the forces and the tumults that play in the world we should never be caught off guard. Nothing every happens until the hour has struck. Life in this universe runs on a divine schedule. The celestial calendar marks with an unerring precision the exact arrival of events. In the belfry of heaven the clock always strikes on time; it is never early, and it is never late. The ships of destiny arrive at their ports of call at the moment they should arrive. If we could untangle the mysteries of life and unravel the energies which run through the world; if we could evaluate correctly the significance of passing events; if we could measure the struggles, dilemmas, and aspirations of mankind, we would find that nothing is born out of time. Everything comes at its appointed moment.
Joseph R. Sizzo

A roof to keep out the rain. Four walls to keep out the wind. Floors to keep out the cold. Yes, but home is more than that. It is the laugh of a baby, the song of a mother, the strength of a father. Warmth of loving hearts, light from happy eyes, kindness, loyalty, comradeship. Home is first school and first church for young ones, where they learn what is right, what is good, and what is kind. "Where they go for comfort when they are hurt or sick. Where joy is shared and sorrow eased. Where fathers and mothers are respected and loved. Where children are wanted. Where the simplest food is good enough for kings because it is earned. Where money is not so important as loving kindness. Where even the teakettle sings from happiness. That is home. God bless it.
Ernestine Schuman-Heink

Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we our out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out with out any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule.
Frederick W. Robertson

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
Romans 8:26

All human beings have failings, all human beings have needs and temptations and stresses. Men and women who live together through long years get to know one another's failings; but they also come to know what is worthy of respect and admiration in those they live with and in themselves. If at the end one can say, "This man used to the limit the powers that God granted him; he was worthy of love and respect and of the sacrifices of many people, made in order that he might achieve what he deemed to be his task," then that life has been lived well and there are no regrets.
Eleanor Roosevelt

There is nothing more beautiful than a rainbow, but it takes both rain and sunshine to make a rainbow. If life is to be rounded and many-colored like the rainbow, both joy and sorrow must come to it. Those who have never known anything but prosperity and pleasure become hard and shallow, but those whose prosperity has been mixed with adversity become kind and gracious.
Author Unknown

God frees our souls, not from service, not from duty, but into service and into duty, and he who mistakes the purpose of his freedom mistakes the character of his freedom. He who thinks that he is being released from the work, and not set free in order that he may accomplish that work, mistakes the condition into which his should is invited to enter.
Phillips Brooks

For the Lord is always good. He is always loving and kind, and His faithfulness goes on and on to each succeeding generation.
Psalms 100:5

If we fill our hours with regrets over the failures of yesterday, and with worries over the problems of tomorrow, we have no today in which to be thankful.
Author Unknown

Blessed is the man who digs a well from which another may draw faith.
Author Unknown

Those who trust in the Lord for help
will find their strength renewed.
They will rise on wings like eagles;
they will run and not get weary;
they will walk and not grow weak.
Isaiah 40:31

You go no where by accident.
Wherever you go, God is sending you.
Wherever you are, God has put you there.
He has a purpose in your being there.
Christ who dwells in you has something
He wants to do through you where you are.
Believe this and go in His grace and love and power.
Richard C. Halverson, Chaplain of the United States Senate

O God, help me to touch someone today with my eyes, my words,
my smile, my voice, my laughter, Your word.
Change my life, so I can make a difference.
Let my actions bring someone closer to you.
Help me to make Christmas last all year.
Help me to use my gifts for Jesus.

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