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 soothe 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

Oh God, as your love is unconditional, thank you for life’s daily challenges to teach me to give unconditional love in return. Thank you for your grace to teach me compassion and to make me whole. Help me to love others as you love me and to remember that each moment is an opportunity for love. Give me the power to turn every negative situation into one where your light shines through. Thank you for your love for me. Amen

Even to your old age and gray hairs I am God, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
Isaiah 46:4

Let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.
1 John 3:18

The Lord is with you when you are with him, if you seek him, he will be found by you.
2 Chronicles 15:2

Every person in the world may not become a personage. But every person may become a personality. The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Interesting thoughts can only live in cultivated minds. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good plays at the theater, good company, good conversation – what are they? They are the happiest people in the world; and they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others.
William Lyon Phelps

Several years ago, a friend of mine and her husband were invited to spend the weekend at the husband's employer's home. My friend, Arlene, was nervous about the weekend. The boss was very wealthy, with a fine home on the waterway, and cars costing more than her house. The first day and evening went well, and Arlene was delighted to have this rare glimpse into how the very wealthy live. The husband's employer was quite generous as a host, and took them to the finest restaurants. Arlene knew she would never have the opportunity to indulge in this kind of extravagance again, so was enjoying herself immensely. As the three of them were about to enter an exclusive restaurant that evening, the boss was walking slightly ahead of Arlene and her husband. He stopped suddenly, looking down on the pavement for a long, silent moment. Arlene wondered if she was supposed to pass him. There was nothing on the ground except a single darkened penny that someone had dropped, and a few cigarette butts. Still silent, the man reached down and picked up the penny. He held it up and smiled, then put it in his pocket as if he had found a great treasure. How absurd! What need did this man have for a single penny? Why would he even take the time to stop and pick it up? Throughout dinner, the entire scene nagged at her. Finally, she could stand it no longer. She causally mentioned that her daughter once had a coin collection, and asked if the penny he had found had been of some value. A smile crept across the man's face as he reached into his pocket for the penny and held it out for her to see. She had seen many pennies before! What was the point of this? "Look at it." He said. "Read what it says." She read the words "United States of America." "No, not that; read further." "One cent?" "No, keep reading." "In God we Trust?" "Yes!" "And?" "And if I trust in God, the name of God is holy, even on a coin. Whenever I find a coin, I see that inscription. It is written on every single United States coin, but we never seem to notice it! God drops a message right in front of me telling me to trust Him. Who am I to pass it by? When I see a coin, I pray, I stop to see if my trust IS in God at that moment. I pick the coin up as a response to God; that I do trust in Him. For a short time, at least, I cherish it as if it were gold. I think it is God's way of starting a conversation with me. Lucky for me, God is patient and pennies are plentiful!" When I was out shopping today, I found a penny on the sidewalk. I stopped and picked it up, and realized that I had been worrying and fretting in my mind about things I cannot change. I read the words, "In God We Trust," and had to laugh. Yes, God, I get the message. It seems that I have been finding an inordinate number of pennies in the last few months, but then, pennies are plentiful! And, God is patient.
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

Gracious God, Safeguard all whom we love in the sanctuary of your love. Thank you for being with me through all my yesterdays. I trust you to hold all my tomorrows in your hand. Thank you for talking to me through coins. Amen

The happiness which brings enduring worth to life is not the superficial happiness that is dependent on circumstances. It is the happiness and contentment that fills the soul even in the midst of the most distressing of circumstances and the most bitter environment. It is the kind of happiness that grins when things go wrong and smiles through the tears. The happiness for which our souls ache is one undisturbed by success or failure, one which will root deeply inside us and give inward relaxation, peace, and contentment, no matter what the surface problems may be. That kind of happiness stands in need of no outward stimulus.
Billy Graham

Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 11:18 – 20

Life is a flame that is always burning itself out, but it catches fire again every time a child is born.
George Bernard Shaw

The story goes that some time ago, a man punished his 5-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of expensive gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became even more upset when the child pasted the gold paper so as to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.

Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift box to her father the next morning and said, "This is for you, Daddy." The father was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found the box was empty. He spoke to her in a harsh manner, "Don't you know, young lady, when you give someone a present there's supposed to be something inside the package?

The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and said, "Oh, Daddy, it's not empty. I blew kisses into it until it was full."

The father was crushed. He fell on his knees and put his arms around his little girl, and he begged her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger.

An accident took the life of the child only a short time later and it is told that the father kept that gold box by his bed for all the years of his life. And whenever he was discouraged or faced difficult problems he would open the box and take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.

In a very real sense, each of us as human beings have been given a golden box filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children, family, friends and God. There is no more precious possession anyone could hold.
Author Unknown

Of all the dear sights in the world, nothing is so beautiful as a child when it is giving something. Any small thing it gives. A child gives the world to you. It opens the world to you as if it were a book you’d never been able to read. But when a gift must be found, it is always some absurd little thing, pasted on crooked . . . an angel looking like a clown. A child has so little that it can give, because it never knows it has given you everything.
Margaret Lee Runbeck

Children are the most wholesome part of the race, the sweetest, for they are freshest from the hand of God. Whimsical, ingenious, mischievous, they fill the world with you and good humor. We adults live a life of apprehension as to what they will think of us; a life of defense against their terrifying energy; a life of hard work to live up to their great expectations. We put them to bed with a sense of relief – and greet them in the morning with delight and anticipation. We envy them the freshness of adventure and the discovery of life. In all these ways, children add to the wonder of being alive. In all these ways, they help to keep us young.
Herbert Hoover

Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life.
Sophocles

Thank you Lord, for the everyday gifts we so often take for granted. Thank you for memories. Thank you for the children. Thank you for the freshness and surprises they bring. Guide and direct me so I may reach out to the children in all of us and lead them to you. Amen

You, little child, with your shining eyes and dimpled cheeks, you can lead us along the pathway to the more abundant life.

We blundering grownups need in our lives the virtues that you have in yours.

The joy and enthusiasm of looking forward to each new day with glorious expectations of
wonderful things to come.

The vision that sees the world as a splendid place with good fairies, brave knights, and
glistening castles reaching toward the sky.

The radiant curiosity that finds adventure in simple things; the mystery of billowy clouds,
the miracle of snowflakes, the magic of growing flowers.

The tolerance that forgets differences as quickly as your childish quarrels are spent, that holds no grudges, that hates never, that loves people for what they are.

The genuineness of being oneself; to be done with sham pretense, and empty show; to be simple, natural, and sincere.

The courage that rises from defeat and tries again, as you with laughing face rebuild the
house of blocks that topples to the floor.

The believing heart that trusts others, knows no fear, and has faith in a Divine Father who watches over his children from the sky.

The contented, trusting mind that at the close of day woos the blessing of childlike slumber.

Little child, we would become like you, that we may find again the Kingdom of Heaven within our hearts.
Author Unknown

As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
Joshua 24:15

When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn't stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home and of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother’s heart, and she puts it into the baby’s mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies.
E. T. Sullivan

I am the Child.
All the world waits for my coming.
All the earth watches with interest to see what I shall become.
Civilization hangs in the balance,
For what I am, the world of tomorrow will be.

I am the Child.
I have come into your world, about which I know nothing.
Why I came I know not;
How I came I know not.
I am curious; I am interested.

I am the Child.
You hold in your hand my destiny.
You determine, largely, whether I shall succeed or fail.
Give me, I pray you, those things that make for happiness.
Train me, I beg you, that I may be a blessing to the world.
Mamie Gene Cole

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward not tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
Kahlil Gibran

When 13-year-old Bobby Hill, the son of a U.S. Army sergeant stationed in Italy, read a book about the work of Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer, he decided to do something to help the medical missionary. He sent a bottle of aspirin to Lieutenant General Richard C. Lindsay, commander of the Allied air forces in Southern Europe, asking if any of his airplanes could parachute the bottle of aspirin to Dr. Schweitzer’s jungle hospital in Africa. Upon hearing the letter, an Italian radio station issued an appeal, resulting in more than $400,000 worth of donated medical supplies. The French and Italian governments each supplied a plane to fly the medicines and the boy to Dr. Schweitzer. The grateful doctor responded, "I never thought a child could do so much for my hospital."
Author Unknown

He comes to us as one unknown, without a name, as of old by the lakeside he came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word, "Follow thou me," and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the suffering which they shall pass through in his fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who he is.
Albert Schweitzer

You, O Lord, created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Psalm 139:13 -14

God sends children to enlarge our hearts, and to make us unselfish and full of kindly sympathies and affections.
Mary Howitt

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
1 John 3:1

If you believe in something, you support it. If you support something, the time comes when good wishes and cordial words are not enough and your hand reaches for your pocketbook. Then the fun begins. For giving is fun. If you refuse to give, your support is wavering; and if your support wavers, it can’t be that you believe in that something in any strong way. Maybe our account books, after all, offer the honest list of those things in which we really believe.
Kenneth Irving Brown

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5 – 6

-I have in my hands two boxes which God gave me to hold. He said, "Put all your sorrows in the black box, and all your joys in the gold." I heeded His words, and in the two boxes both my joys and sorrows I stored, but though the gold became heavier each day the black was as light as before. With curiosity, I opened the black, I wanted to find out why, and I saw, in the base of the box, a hole which my sorrows had fallen out by. I showed the hole to God, and mused, "I wonder where my sorrows could be." He smiled a gentle smile and said, "My child, they're all here with me." I asked, "God, why did you give me the boxes, Why the gold, and the black with the hole?" "My child, the gold is for you to count your blessings, The black is for you to let go."
Author Unknown

Into all our lives, in my simple, familiar, homely ways, God infuses this element of joy from the surprises of life, which unexpectedly brighten our days, and fill our eyes with light. He drops this added sweetness into his children’s cup, and makes it to run over. The success we are not counting on, the blessing we were not trying after, the strain of music in the midst of drudgery, the beautiful morning picture or sunset glory thrown in as we pass to or from our daily business, the unsought word of encouragement or expression of sympathy, the sentence that meant for us more than a writer or speaker thought – these and a hundred others that everyone’s experience can supply are instances of what I mean.
Samuel Longfellow

I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you. Do not fear; I will help you.
Isaiah 41:13

When I said, "My foot is slipping," your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.
Psalm 94:18 – 19

Remind me to take time to study the map
before racing down the road, to look for
signposts and wait for your direction
as I travel on the way.
Proverbs 19:2

God will not let your foot slip – he who
watches over you will not slumber…
The Lord watches over you –
The Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm –
He will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
Psalm 121: 3, 5 – 8

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. Amen.

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