Precious Gifts



Yesterday a butterfly
Came floating gently through the sky.
He soared up through the atmosphere
Then drifted close enough to hear.

I said, "I'd love to fly with you
And sail around the way you do.
It looks like it would be such fun
To fly up toward the summer sun.

But I have not your graceful charm.
I haven't wings, just these two arms.
I've been designed to walk around.
My human feet must touch the ground.

Then magically he spoke to me
and told me what his wish would be.

He said, "What I'd love most to do
Is walk upon God's Earth with you,
To squish its mud between my toes
Or touch my finger to my nose.

I'd love just once to walk around
With human feet to touch the ground,
But I have not two legs that swing,
I haven't arms, just these two wings."

And so we went our separate ways
In wonder and surprise.
For we'd both seen God's precious gifts
Through someone else's eyes.

Author Unknown

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters:  You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

James 1:19



A House is Made of Walls and Beams

 A Home is Made of Love and Dreams

In Little House in the Ozarks, Laura Ingalls Wilder writes, "I spent an afternoon a short time ago with a friend in her new home.  The house was beautiful and well-furnished with new furniture, but it seemed bare and empty to me.  I wondered why this was until I remembered my experience with my new house.  I could not make the living room seem homelike.  I would move the chairs here and there and change the pictures on the wall, but something was lacking.  Nothing seemed to change the feeling of coldness and vacancy that displease me whenever I entered the room.

"Then, as I stood in the middle of the room one day wondering what I could possible do to improve it, it came to me that all that was needed was for someone to live in it and furnish it with the everyday, pleasant thoughts of friendship and cheerfulness and hospitality."

A homey atmosphere is not a matter of the right decorations; it emanates from the thoughts and feelings of the people who live there.  Feelings of warmth and welcome can be created only by people who are kind, generous, and even-tempered.  Why not determine to "warm-up" the atmosphere where you live today?

Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.

Proverbs 15:17