[JustAmy]

Poetry and Potpourri made its debut on September 22, 2003

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[JustAmy]

4-8-05
Graphic by Billie

Flowers

I look at the soil of darkness and putrescence,
How can flowers find sustenance there?
And yet from soil and sunlight they somehow,
Will lift perfection in the air.

The honeybee enjoys the harvest,
And journeys deep in the flower-bell.
She wallows in the joy of life,
While we only get a smell.

NicknamedBob . . . March 28, 2005
© 2005

[OESY]

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow—
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

-- Thich Nhat Hanh, from "Please Call Me by My True Names"

[The Mayor]

It's morning somewhere..

April 8, 2005

Faithful Ambition

Read:
Galatians 6:12-18

God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. -Galatians 6:14

Bible In One Year: 2 Samuel 16-18

In the late 19th century, a former student of Oxford University became the Lord Chancellor of England. One of his classmates became Britain's Foreign Secretary. A third gained an international reputation as an author. A fourth, Temple Gairdner, was perhaps the most gifted of his classmates but did not achieve fame and influence. Why? He accepted Jesus as his Savior and lived as a missionary in obscure and dangerous places.

Gairdner could have become as well-known as his fellow students. But when he decided to become a missionary, he wrote to his sister, "I have found ambition dreadfully difficult to cope with. It seems so natural, especially with one's upbringing and education, to look forward to making a mark and a name, and so awfully hard to resign oneself to living and dying tucked away in some corner."

We probably will not be called upon to make that kind of sacrifice. But are we willing to serve our Savior in radical obedience? To serve Him faithfully we must put aside our own interests, as Paul did: "God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14).

We don't need to be famous. But we do need to be faithful wherever God calls us. -Vernon Grounds

Let us then be true and faithful,
Trusting, serving, every day;
Just one glimpse of Him in glory
Will the toils of life repay. -Hewitt

The world rewards quick success; God rewards long-term faithfulness.

FOR FURTHER STUDY
Knowing God Through Galatians

[PGalt]

Thanks for the ping Amy. Another great thread. 63° here in White Lake Michigan...feels like 75°. Grilled out burgers an hour ago and just got back from hitting a bucket of golf balls at a nearby county park with my son. Been working in the yard today. What a great weekend to have off work! It's supposed to be even nicer tomorrow (Sunday). I hope you all are enjoying life wherever you are.