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

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

A baby is born with a need to be loved - and never outgrows it.
Frank A. Clark

Basically, the only thing we need is a hand that rests on our own, that wishes it well, that sometimes guides us.
Hector Bianciotti, Sans La Misericorde du Christ

You don't have to go looking for love when it's where you come from.
Werner Erhard

Some people come into our lives
and leave footprints on our hearts
and we are never ever the same.
Flavia Weedn

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
Marcel Proust

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world - but a world lives in you.
Frederick Buechner

In the coldest February, as in every other month in every other year,
the best thing to hold on to in this world is each other.
Linda Ellerbee, Move On: Adventures in the Real World

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

Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end.
Author Unknown

Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.
Henry Van Dyke

Anyone can catch your eye, but it takes someone special to catch your heart.
Author Unknown

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
Zora Neale Hurston

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

A bell is no bell 'til you ring it,
A song is no song 'til you sing it,
And love in your heart
Wasn’t put there to stay -
Love isn’t love
'Til you give it away.
Oscar Hammerstein, Sound of Music, "You Are Sixteen (Reprise)"

Love one another and you will be happy.
It's as simple and as difficult as that.
Michael Leunig

Love is the greatest refreshment in life.
Pablo Picasso

Love puts the fun in together, the sad in apart, and the joy in a heart.
Author Unknown

Can miles truly separate you from friends....
If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?
Richard Bach

Love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image... otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
Author Unknown

Without love, the rich and poor live in the same house.
Author Unknown

Take away love and our earth is a tomb.
Robert Browning

To the world you might be one person,
but to one person you might be the world.
Author Unknown

For you see, each day I love you more
Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.
Rosemonde Gerard

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
Peter Ustinov

Love is not blind - it sees more, not less.
But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.
Rabbi Julins Gordon

True love is when you put someone on a pedestal, and they fall - but you are there to catch them.
Author Unknown

Love, and a cough, cannot be hid.
George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum, 1651

Love is missing someone whenever you're apart, but somehow feeling warm inside because you're close in heart.
Kay Knudsen

Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones,
as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire.
François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

True love stories never have endings.
Richard Bach

In true love the smallest distance is too great, and the greatest distance can be bridged.
Hans Nouwens

Trip over love, you can get up. Fall in love and you fall forever.
Author Unknown

Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.
Bruce Lee

We loved with a love that was more than love.
Edgar Allan Poe

Who, being loved, is poor?
Oscar Wilde

Love never reasons but profusely gives; gives, like a thoughtless prodigal,
its all, and trembles lest it has done too little.
Hannah Moore

Love would never be a promise of a rose garden unless it is showered with light of faith, water of sincerity and air of passion.
Author Unknown

At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.
Plato

The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it. You and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.
George Moore

Poetry spills from the cracks of a broken heart, but flows from one which is loved.
Christopher Paul Rubero

Instead of allowing yourself to be so unhappy, just let your love grow as God wants it to grow; seek goodness in others, love more persons more; love them more impersonally, more unselfishly, without thoughts of return. The return, never fear, will take care of itself.
Henry Drummond

Love is the poetry of the senses.
Honoré de Balzac

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

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.
G.K. Chesterton

For in Christ you have been enriched in every way – in all your speaking and in all your knowledge.
1 Corinthians 1:5

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

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

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

Every man has a train of thought on which he rides when he is alone. The dignity and nobility of his life, as well as his happiness, depend upon the direction in which that train is going, the baggage it carries, and the scenery through which it travels.
Joseph Fort Newton

The kingdom of God is within you.
Luke 17:21

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

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

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 ever 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

Patriotism is easy to understand in America - it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.
Calvin Coolidge

Leadership is action, not position.
Donald H. McGannon

A leader leads by example, whether he intends to or not.
Author Unknown

A leader is a dealer in hope.
Napoleon Bonaparte

If I were to characterize George Washington's feelings toward his country,
I should be less inclined than most people to stress what is called Washington's love of his country. What impresses me as far more important is what I should call Washington's respect for his country.
Randolph G. Adams

Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.
Tom Peters

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt

I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it.
Woodrow Wilson

When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.
Calvin Coolidge

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

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

Life is a ticket to the greatest show on earth.
Martin H. Fischer

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Harry S. Truman

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
Harry Truman

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
Albert Camus

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
Henry David Thoreau

Life is the game that must be played.
Edwin Arlington Robinson

God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only question is how.
Henry Ward Beecher

Following straight lines shortens distances, and also life.
Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

Life is half spent before we know what it is.
George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum, 1651

Life is simple, its just not easy.
Author Unknown

Living involves tearing up one rough draft after another.
Author Unknown

Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
Hans Christian Anderson

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
Elwyn Brooks White

You cannot discover the purpose of life by asking someone else - the only way you'll ever get the right answer is by asking yourself.
Terri Guillemets

If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, where X is work,
Y is play, and Z is keep your mouth shut.
Albert Einstein

In the book of life, the answers aren't in the back.
Charlie Brown

Life is like a ten-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.
Charles Schulz

The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer,
but rather what they miss.
Thomas Carlyle

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

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

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

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
Friedrich Nietzsche

A life without cause is a life without effect.
Barbarella

Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.
Grandma Moses

Life is the sum of all your choices.
Albert Camus

I know what things are good: friendship and work and conversation. These I shall have.
Rupert Brooke

To live remains an art which everyone must learn, and which no one can teach.
Havelock Ellis

The purpose of life is a life of purpose.
Robert Byrne

Human life is purely a matter of deciding what's important to you.
Anonymous

Remind me Lord, that your gifts to me are meant to be shared in love, with others.
1 Samuel 16:23

A partially deaf boy trudged into his home one day after school. In his hand, he carried a note. It was a note from school officials, suggesting that his parents remove him from school. According to those wise officials, this boy was ‘too stupid to learn.’
Upon reading the note, the boy’s mother vowed, “My son Tom isn’t too stupid to learn. I’ll teach him myself.” And that is exactly what she did.
Many years later when Tom died, many Americans paid tribute to him by turning off their lights for one full minute. This was a fitting tribute, for Tom Edison invented the light bulb – along with motion pictures and the phonograph. In all, he was credited with more than a thousand patents
No one is beyond discovering new ways to express talent, enthusiasm, creativity, and love. No one is beyond receiving affection and encouragement. Stand up for others and never give up on yourself.
Author Unknown

He who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for.
Moroccan Proverb

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

Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure; where your treasure, there your heart; where your heart, there your happiness.
Saint Augustine

Life is like a blanket too short. You pull it up and your toes rebel, you yank it down and shivers meander about your shoulder; but cheerful folks manage to draw their knees up and pass a very comfortable night.
Marion Howard

Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.
Samuel Johnson

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished.
If you're alive, it isn't.
Richard Bach

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me."
Erma Bombeck

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

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

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

O Lord, Guide me to hear your whispers and to live each day a new one for you. Help me to remember that if I get the little things right, the big things will take care of themselves. Open the door of my heart. Make me a stone in your temple of love. Amen

Wisdom marks our foreheads with ashes
As we begin the journey through Lent.
She intuits what these forty days may hold in store for us
And tries to prepare us.
Remembering Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness,
She knows the trials, temptations,
And vulnerability one encounters in seeking to reflect,
To shed, to open oneself, to prepare.
She remembers the wounds to come.
Jan L. Richadson, Sacred Journeys

The Lord is my pacesetter. . . I shall not rush
He makes me stop for quiet intervals
He provides me with images of stillness, which restore my serenity
He leads me in the way of efficiency through calmness of mind and His guidance is peace
Even though I have a great many things to accomplish each day,
I will not fret, for His presence is here
His timelessness, His all-importance will keep me in balance
He prepares refreshment and renewal in the midst of my activity
by anointing my mind with the oils of tranquility
My cup of joyous energy overflows
Truly harmony and effectiveness shall be the fruits of my hours
For I shall walk in the Pace of my Lord and dwell in His house for ever.
Japanese version of the 23rd Psalm

May the road rise up to meet you:
May the wind be always at your back,
The sun shine warm upon your face,
The rain fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.
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

Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands.
Protect them as they protect us.
Bless them and their families for the selfless acts
they perform for us in our time of need.
I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen

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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