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Hurt people hurt people.
I'm not an optimist. I'm a prisoner of hope.
—Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Ignoring the facts doesn’t change the facts.
The highest result of education is tolerance.
—Helen Keller
I think people need love or they die inside.
—John R Williams, International Educational Foundation
Who can be good, unless made so by loving?
—Augustine
Being kind is more important than being right.
—Andy Rooney
Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.
—William Shakespeare
I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.
—Abraham Lincoln
It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.
Real communication happens when people feel safe.
—Ken Blanchard
Cruel words hurt deeply, but loving words heal quickly.
Listening is the very first thing we owe the oppressed.
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
—Plato
God and I have something in common - we both love you!
Love is hard to give away because it keeps coming back
Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.
—H Jackson Brown, Jr.
How else, but through a broken heart, may Christ enter in?
The only way to make a person worthy of love is to love them.
—Thomas Merton
Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God,
—Bob Pierce
Don’t confuse being "soft" with seeing the other guy’s point of view.
—George Bush
God, help us not to despise or oppose what we do not understand.
—William Penn
Man's way leads to a hopeless end; God’s way leads to an endless hope.
Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument. —Samuel Johnson Minds are like parachutes; they function effectively only when they’re open.
Too often we enjoy the comfort of an opinion without the discomfort of thought.
—John F. Kennedy
We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world. —Helen Keller
Two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.
The greatest undeveloped resource is faith; the greatest unused power is prayer.
Grief is not a sign of weakness nor a lack of faith – it is the price we pay for loving.
It’ s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know much about the problem. —Malcolm Forbes
Change comes from a degree of discomfort that allows for and spurs thought and action.
—William Blum Compassion means being so close to someone that his tears run down your cheeks.
The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.
Lord, when I am wrong, make me willing to change;
when I am right, make me easy to live with. Where the heart is willing it will find a thousand ways,
but where it is unwilling it will find a thousand excuses.
The truth can set us free,
but only if we're always in the process of discovering it.
—Rabbi Irwin Kula, Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life
Only in the context of grace can we face our sin;
only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds.
—Henri Nouwen
One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder
where you are when you don’t come home at night.
—Margaret Mead
If God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world,
what right do we have to condemn?
—Cal Thomas
Life is a grindstone,
but whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us.
The first half of our life is spent ignoring our parents’ advice...
and the second half trying to keep our children from ignoring ours!
"Forgiveness is the economy of the heart.
[It] saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits."
—Hannah More
Nothing will make us so charitable and tender to the faults of others as,
by self-examination, thoroughly to know our own.
—Fenelon
It’s not enough to belong to a religion; you also have to put it into practice.
Religion is like a medicine; you have to ingest it to combat the illness.
—the Dalai Lama
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. --Dale Carnegie Dear God, Please make all the bad people good and the good people nice.
Amen.
Repeat Performance:
Oh God of Second Chances and New Beginnings,
Here I am again.
There are two ways to slide easily through life:
to believe everything or to doubt everything.
Both ways save us from thinking.
The Holy Spirit's voice is only as loud as our willingness to hear it.
To be otherwise would compromise our free will,
which the Holy Spirit seeks to restore, not to destroy.
—Marianne Williamson
"God created us to be in relationship; first with Him and then with one another.
And the need to belong and be a part of someone else’s life
is still one of our primary basic needs."
—Willie and Elaine Oliver
Life is too short, and we have never too much time
for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us.
Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind!
—Henri F. Amiel
God’s love to sinners involves His identifying Himself with their welfare.
Such an identification is involved in all love; it is, indeed,
the test of whether love is genuine or not.
—J I Packer
Biologically, adults produce children. Spiritually, children produce adults.
Most of us do not grow up until we have helped children do so.
Thus do the generations form a braided cord.
—George F. Will
You may discover that what truly matters in life
has less to do with getting exactly the right answers
than with asking the truly important questions.
—Timothy Johnson, MD, medical commentator on Good Morning America
The essential problem before the church is not
reconciling homosexuality with the Bible,
but to reconcile the continuous abuse and condemnation
of gay and lesbian persons with the love of Christ.
—Dr. Harold G Porter
The soft-minded man fears change. He feels security in the status quo,
and he has an almost morbid fear of the new.
For him, the greater pain is the pain of a new idea.
—Martin Luther King
Mother Teresa realized that the greater poverty
is to be unloved, unwanted, rejected and lonely.
She saw the physical poverty, but she saw more -
the poverty of the soul which needs love and compassion,
but which one may not find in the church.
Let it be love which builds bridges between us
and encourages us to do everything possible.
Let love for each other and love for the truth be the
answer to present difficulties and tensions.
From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth,
From the laziness that is content with half-truth, From the arrogance that thinks it knows all the truth, Oh God of Truth, deliver us! Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin.
It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me
until there is peace and joy finally for you, too.
—Frederick Buechner
If I am inconsiderate about the comforts of others,
or their feelings, or even their little weaknesses;
if I am careless about their little hurts
and miss opportunities to smooth their way,
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
—Amy Carmichael
A pastor was appealing to his congregation to reach out to gays
as Jesus would. A concerned parishioner countered,
"But then more gays would come and fill up our church."
The pastor responded, "Yes, that's true, and they could sit in the
pews beside the adulterers, murderers, liars, thieves, gossipers, etc."
It appears to me that the problem of homosexuality
isn’t what it does to people who have that orientation (and their families),
but what it does to those of us who are trying to
reflect Christ’s character in our lives and communities.
—Steve Chavez, Associate Editor, Adventist Review
When we honestly ask ourselves which people in our lives mean the most to us,
we often find that it’s those who, instead of giving advice, solutions or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and caring hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness — that is the friend who cares. —Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude
He drew a circle that shut me out, Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win;
We drew a circle that took him in.
—Edwin Markham
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace!
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy...
—St. Francis of Assisi, A Franciscan Blessing
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers,
half truths, and superficial relationships,
so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice,
oppression and exploitation of people,
so that you may wish for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with enough foolishness
to believe that you can make a difference in this world,
so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
- Quoted in the Adventist Review special issue on Loma Linda University
Lean Hard Child of My love, lean hard,
and let Me feel the pressure of thy care;
I know thy burden, child, I shaped it;
poised it in My own hand,
made no proportion in its weight
to thine unaided strength;
for even as I laid it on, I said,
"I shall be near, and while he leans on Me,
this burden shall be Mine, not his;
so shall I keep My child within
the circling arms of My own love.
Here lay it down, nor fear
to impose it on a shoulder which
upholds the government of worlds.
Yet closer come; thou art not yet near enough;
I would embrace thy care
so I might feel My child reposing on my breast.
Thou lovest Me? I knew it.
Doubt not then, but, loving Me, lean hard!
Blessed be the Lord, Who daily bears our burdens.
—Psalm 68:19
As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.
—Isaiah 66:13
Do not judge or you, too, will be judged!
—Matthew 7:1
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.
—Psalm 103:13, 14
I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud,
and your sins like a mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.
—Isaiah 44:22
Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
—Psalm 37:4
God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
—Romans 5:8
Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres. Love never fails!
—1 Corinthians 13:7-8
I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with loving-kindness.
—Jeremiah 31:3
He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children,
and the hearts of the children to their fathers.
—Hosea 4:6
He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.
—Philippians 1:6
I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that He is able
to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day.
—2 Timothy 1:12
By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
—John 13:35
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
—Matthew 9:13
Love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you.
—Matthew 5:44
Christlike love places the most favorable construction
on the motives and acts of others.
—E G White, Acts of the Apostles, 319
No circumstance of birth or nationality, no condition of life,
can turn away His love from the children of men.
—E G White, Desire of Ages 194.
The Savior is still carrying forward the same work
as when He proffered the water of life to the woman of Samaria.
Those who call themselves His followers may despise and shun the outcast ones;
but no circumstance of birth or nationality, no condition of life,
can turn away His love from the children of men.
—E G White, Desire of Ages, 194
All the perplexities of life’s experience will then [in heaven] be made plain.
Where to us have appeared only confusion and disappointment,
broken purposes and thwarted plans, will be seen
a grand, overruling, victorious purpose, a divine harmony.
—E G White, Education, 305
Come in humility, with a heart full of tenderness,
and with a sense of the temptations before yourself and your children;
by faith, bind them upon the altar, entreating for them the care of the Lord.
Ministering angels will guard children who are thus dedicated to God.
—E G White, Child Guidance, 519
The more we study the divine character in the light of the cross,
the more we see mercy, tenderness and forgiveness
blended with equity and justice, and the more clearly we discern
innumerable evidences of a love that is infinite and a tender pity
surpassing a mother's yearning sympathy for her wayward child.
—E G White, Steps to Christ, p. 15
The Creator of all ideas may impress different minds with the same thought,
but each may express it in a different way, yet without contradiction.
The fact that this difference exists should not perplex or confuse us.
It is seldom that two persons will view and express truth in the very same way.
Each dwells on particular points which his constitution and education
have fitted him to appreciate. The sunlight falling upon
the different objects gives those objects a different hue.
—E. G. White, Selected Messages, Vol. 1, p. 22
—No one has a right to control another's mind, and judge for another,
prescribing what is his duty. There are certain rights
that belong to every individual, in doing God's service.
No man has any more right to take these rights from us than to take life itself.
God has given us freedom to think, and it is our privilege and duty
always to be a doer of the Word, and to follow our impressions of duty.
We are only human beings, and one human being has no jurisdiction
over the conscience of any other human being.
- E G White, Letter 92, 1895
"...no man who has the true ideal of what constitutes a perfect character
will fail to manifest the sympathy and tenderness of Christ.
The influence of grace is to soften the heart, to refine and purify the feelings,
giving a heaven-born delicacy and sense of propriety...
A religion that leads men to place a low estimate upon human beings,
whom Christ has esteemed of such value as to give Himself for them;
a religion that would lead us to be careless of human needs,
sufferings, or rights, is a spurious religion...
It is because men take upon themselves the name of Christ,
while in life they deny His character,
that Christianity has so little power in the world."
—E G White, Thoughts From the Mount of Blessings, pp. 135-137
"The first step of apostasy is to get up a creed, telling us what we shall believe.
The second is, to make that creed a test of fellowship. The third is to try members by that creed. The fourth to denounce as heretics those who do not believe that creed. And fifth, to commence persecution against such." - J N Loughborough, Review and Herald, October 8, 1861 |