At first I saw God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I did wrong so as to know whether I merited Heaven or Hell when I die. He was out there sort of like the President. I recognized his picture when I saw it, but I really didn’t know Him.
But later on, when I recognized my Higher Power, it seemed as though life was rather like a bike ride, but it was a tandum bike, and I noticed that God was in the back helping me pedal.
I don’t know just when it was that He suggested we change places, but life has not been the same since, life with my Higher Power, that is. God makes life exciting!!
When I had control, I knew the way. It was rather boring but predictable. It was the shortest distance between two points. But when He took the lead, He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places, and at breakneck speeds: It was all I could do to hang on! Even though it looked like madness, He said “PEDAL!?
I worried and was anxious and asked, “Where are you taking me?? He laughed, and didn’t answer, and I started to learn trust. I forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure. And when I’d say I’m scared, He’d lean back and touch my hand.
He took me to people with gifts that I needed---Gifts of Healing, Acceptance, and Joy. They gave me their gifts to take on my journey, our journey, God’s and mine. And we were off again. He said, “Give the gifts away; they’re extra baggage, too much weight.? So I did, to the people we met, and I found that in giving I received, and still our burden was light.
I did not trust Him at first, in control of my life. I thought He’d wreck it. But He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners, jump to clear high rocks, fly to shorten scary passages. And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places. I’m beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion, my Higher Power.
And when I’m sure I just can’t do any more, He just smiles and says, ...................”PEDAL"
Author Unknown
TO REMEMBER ME
The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital busily occupied with the living and the dying. At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and, for all practical purposes, my life has stopped.
When that happens, do not attempt to install artificial life into my body by a machine. And don't call this my deathbed. Let it be called the Bed of Life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.
Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby’s face or love in the eyes of a woman. Give my heart to a person whose heart has caused nothing but pain. Give my blood to a teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of a car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play. Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week. Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body, and find a way to make a crippled child walk.
Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday, a speechless boy will shout at a crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her window. Burn what is left of me and scatter my ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.
If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses, and all prejudice against my fellow man. Give my sins to the devil. Give my soul to God. If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.
If you do all I have asked, I will live forever....
By: Robert N. Test
PRAYER FOR SERENITY
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And Wisdom to know the difference,
Living one day at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to Peace,
Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that YOU will make all things right
If I surrender to YOUR WILL,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with YOU forever in the next.
AMEN
By: Reinhole Niebuhr
AWARDS I AM PROUD TO HAVE RECEIVED
In Memory of Women Everywhere Whose Lives Have Been Effected By Violence.
THE POWER OF A SMILE
A smile is quite a funny thing;
It wrinkles up your face,
And when it’s gone you never find
Its secret hiding place.
But far more wonderful it is
To see what smiles can do;
You smile at someone;
That person smiles at you,
And so one smile makes two.
Because you smiled,
He/She smiles at someone else,
And then that one smiles back,
And that one smiles, until in truth,
You fail in keeping track.
And since a smile can do great good
By cheering hearts of care,
Let’s smile alot today
For smiles go everywhere.
Author Unknown
CHANGE
When I was young, I set out to change the world. When I grew a little older, I perceived that this was too ambitious so I set out to change my state. This, too, I realized as I grew older was too ambitious, so I set out to change my town. When I realized I could not even do this, I tried to change my family. Now as an old man, I know that I should have started by changing myself. If I had started with myself, maybe then I would have succeeded in changing my family, the town, or even the state---and who know, maybe even the world!!
*Words of a chassidic Rabbi on his death bed*
