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Friday 29 April 2011

The World Is A Puzzle



There was a man who had a little boy that he loved very much. Everyday after work the man would come home and play with the little boy. He would always spend all of his extra time playing with the little boy.
One night, while the man was at work, he realized that he had extra work to do for the evening, and that he wouldn’t be able to play with his little boy. But, he wanted to be able to give the boy something to keep him busy. So, looking around his office, he saw a magazine with a large map of the world on the cover. He got an idea. He removed the map, and then patiently tore it up into small pieces. Then he put all the pieces in his coat pocket.
When he got home, the little boy came running to him and was ready to play. The man explained that he had extra work to do and couldn’t play just now, but he led the little boy into the dining room, and taking out all the pieces of the map, he spread them on the table. He explained that it was a map of the world, and that by the time he could put it back together, his extra work would be finished, and they could both play. Surely this would keep the child busy for hours, he thought.
About half an hour later the boy came to the man and said, “Okay, it’s finished. Can we play now.?”
The man was surprised, saying, “That’s impossible. Let’s go see.” And sure enough, there was the picture of the world, all put together, every piece in it’s place.
The man said, “That’s amazing ! How did you do that ?” The boy said, “It was simple. On the back of the page was a picture of a man. When I put the man together the whole world fell into place.”

Thursday 28 April 2011

A NOTE TO GOD from Khiara

 A Short prayer note that my 11 year old daughter wrote for God concerning her 3 Thai friends. Be blessed as you read along and may we have this kind of LOVE and CARE as well as PRAYER as this young girl have.



These are Khiara's Thai friends ANN and BEN, these are just the two of the three girls that she prayed for on her note.

Wednesday 27 April 2011

A Father's Love Letter



The words you are about to experience are true. They will change your life if you let them. For they come from the very heart of God... He loves you...and He is the Father you have been looking for all your life. This is His love letter to you...

My Child...

You may not know me, but I know everything about you ...Psalm 139:1

I know when you sit down and when you rise up ...Psalm 139:2

I am familiar with all your ways ...Psalm 139:3

Even the very hairs on your head are numbered ...Matthew 10:29-31

For you were made in my image ...Genesis 1:27

In me you live and move and have your being ...Acts 17:28

For you are my offspring ...Acts 17:28

I knew you even before you were conceived ...Jeremiah 1:4-5

I chose you when I planned creation ...Ephesians 1:11-12

You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book ...Psalm 139:15-16

I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live ...Acts 17:26

You are fearfully and wonderfully made ...Psalm 139:14

I knit you together in your mother's womb ...Psalm 139:13

And brought you forth on the day you were born ...Psalm 71:6

I have been misrepresented by those who don't know me ...John 8:41-44

I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love ...1 John 4:16

And it is my desire to lavish my love on you ...1 John 3:1

Simply because you are my child and I am your Father ...1 John 3:1

I offer you more than your earthly father ever could ...Matthew 7:11

For I am the perfect father ...Matthew 5:48

Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand ...James 1:17

For I am your provider and I meet all your needs ...Matthew 6:31-33

My plan for your future has always been filled with hope ...Jeremiah 29:11

Because I love you with an everlasting love ...Jeremiah 31:3

My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore ...Psalms 139:17-18

And I rejoice over you with singing ...Zephaniah 3:17

I will never stop doing good to you ...Jeremiah 32:40

For you are my treasured possession ...Exodus 19:5

I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul ...Jeremiah 32:41

And I want to show you great and marvelous things ...Jeremiah 33:3

If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me ...Deuteronomy 4:29

Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart ...Psalm 37:4

For it is I who gave you those desires ...Philippians 2:13

I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine ...Ephesians 3:20

For I am your greatest encourager ...2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

I am also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles ...2 Corinthians 1:3-4

When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you ...Psalm 34:18

As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart ...Isaiah 40:11

One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes ...Revelation 21:3-4

And I'll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth ...Revelation 21:3-4

I am your Father, and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus ...John 17:23

For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed ...John 17:26

He is the exact representation of my being ...Hebrews 1:3

He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you ...Romans 8:31

And to tell you that I am not counting your sins ...2 Corinthians 5:18-19

Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled ...2 Corinthians 5:18-19

His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you ...1 John 4:10

I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love ...Romans 8:31-32

If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me ...1 John 2:23

And nothing will ever separate you from my love again ...Romans 8:38-39

Come home and I'll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen ...Luke 15:7

I have always been Father, and will always be Father ...Ephesians 3:14-15

My question is...Will you be my child? ...John 1:12-13

I am waiting for you ...Luke 15:11-32

Love, Your Dad... Almighty God

Tuesday 26 April 2011

One Solitary Life

- Unknown
Contributed by Kathy Pinto


Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in an obscure village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty, and then for three years he was an itinerant teacher.
He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never traveled, except in his infancy, more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompanies greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
While he was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through a mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth, his seamless robe. When he was dead, he was taken down from the cross and laid in a borrowed grave through the courtesy of a friend.
Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone, and today he is the centerpiece of the human race and the leader of all human progress. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever were built, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has this one solitary personality.


A New Bicycle for Almie Rose
Author Unknown
Submitted by Richard

It was at least two months before Christmas, when nine year old Almie Rose told her father and me that she wanted a new bicycle. Her old Barbie bicycle was just too babyish, and besides, it needed a new tire.
As Christmas drew nearer, her desire for a bicycle seemed to fade–or so we thought, as she didn’t mention it again. Merrily, we started purchasing the latest rage–Baby-Sitter’s Club dolls–and beautiful story books, a doll house, a holiday dress and toys. Then, much to our surprise, on December 23rd she proudly announced that she “really wanted a bike more than anything else.”
Now we didn’t know what to do. It was just too late, what with all the details of preparing Christmas dinner and buying last-minute gifts, to take the time to select the “right bike” for our little girl. So here we were–Christmas Eve around 9pm, having just returned from a wonderful party, contemplating our evening ahead…hours of wrapping children’s presents, parent’s presents, a brother’s presents and friend’s presents. With Almie Rose and her six-year-old brother, Dylan, nestled snug in their beds, we could now think only of the bike, the guilt and the idea that we were parents who would disappoint their child.
That’s when my husband, Ron, was inspired. “What if I make a little bicycle out of clay and write a note that she could trade the clay model in for a real bike?” The theory, of course, being that since this is a high-ticket item and she is “such a big girl,” it would be much better for her to pick it out. So he spent the next five hours painstakingly working with clay to create a miniature bike.
Three hours later, on Christmas morning, we were so excited for Almie Rose to open the little heart-shaped package with the beautiful red and white clay bike and the note. Finally, she opened and read the note aloud.
She looked at me and then at Ron and said, “So, does this mean that I trade in this bike that Daddy made me for a real one?”
Beaming, I said, “YES.”
Almie Rose had tears in her eyes when she replied, “I could never trade in this beautiful bicycle that Daddy made me. I’d rather keep this than get a real bike.”
At that moment, we would have moved Heaven and Earth to buy her every bicycle on the planet!

Sunday 24 April 2011

Ragman


by Walter Wangerin, Jr.


I saw a strange sight. I stumbled upon a story most strange, like nothing my life, my street sense, my sly tongue had ever prepared me for.
Hush, child. Hush, now, and I will tell it to you.
Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our City. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear, tenor voice: “Rags!” Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet music.
“Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!”
“Now, this is a wonder,” I thought to myself, for the man stood six-feet-four, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular, and his eyes flashed intelligence. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the inner city?
I followed him. My curiosity drove me. And I wasn’t disappointed.
Soon the Ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, sighing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her knees and elbows made a sad X. Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking.
The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and Pampers.
“Give me your rag,” he said so gently, “and I’ll give you another.”
He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. She blinked from the gift to the giver.
Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thing: he put her stained handkerchief to his own face; and then HE began to weep, to sob as grievously as she had done, his shoulders shaking. Yet she was left without a tear.
“This IS a wonder,” I breathed to myself, and I followed the sobbing Ragman like a child who cannot turn away from mystery.
“Rags! Rags! New rags for old!”
In a little while, when the sky showed grey behind the rooftops and I could see the shredded curtains hanging out black windows, the Ragman came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage, whose eyes were empty. Blood soaked her bandage. A single line of blood ran down her cheek.
Now the tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity, and he drew a lovely yellow bonnet from his cart.
“Give me your rag,” he said, tracing his own line on her cheek, “and I’ll give you mine.”
The child could only gaze at him while he loosened the bandage, removed it, and tied it to his own head. The bonnet he set on hers. And I gasped at what I saw: for with the bandage went the wound! Against his brow it ran a darker, more substantial blood – his own!
“Rags! Rags! I take old rags!” cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong, intelligent Ragman.
The sun hurt both the sky, now, and my eyes; the Ragman seemed more and more to hurry.
“Are you going to work?” he asked a man who leaned against a telephone pole. The man shook his head.
The Ragman pressed him: “Do you have a job?”
“Are you crazy?” sneered the other. He pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket – flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm.
“So,” said the Ragman. “Give me your jacket, and I’ll give you mine.”
Such quiet authority in his voice!
The one-armed man took off his jacket. So did the Ragman – and I trembled at what I saw: for the Ragman’s arm stayed in its sleeve, and when the other put it on he had two good arms, thick as tree limbs; but the Ragman had only one.
“Go to work,” he said.
After that he found a drunk, lying unconscious beneath an army blanket, and old man, hunched, wizened, and sick. He took that blanket and wrapped it round himself, but for the drunk he left new clothes.
And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman. Though he was weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely at the forehead, pulling his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old, old, and sick, yet he went with terrible speed. On spider’s legs he skittered through the alleys of the City, this mile and the next, until he came to its limits, and then he rushed beyond.
I wept to see the change in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow. And yet I needed to see where he was going in such haste, perhaps to know what drove him so.
The little old Ragman – he came to a landfill. He came to the garbage pits. And then I wanted to help him in what he did, but I hung back, hiding. He climbed a hill. With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that hill. Then he sighed. He lay down. He pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his bones with an army blanket. And he died.
Oh, how I cried to witness that death! I slumped in a junked car and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope – because I had come to love the Ragman. Every other face had faded in the wonder of this man, and I cherished him; but he died. I sobbed myself to sleep.
I did not know – how could I know? – that I slept through Friday night and Saturday and its night, too.
But then, on Sunday morning, I was wakened by a violence.
Light – pure, hard, demanding light – slammed against my sour face, and I blinked, and I looked, and I saw the last and the first wonder of all. There was the Ragman, folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! And, besides that, healthy! There was no sign of sorrow nor of age, and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.
Well, then I lowered my head and trembling for all that I had seen, I myself walked up to the Ragman. I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him. Then I took off all my clothes in that place, and I said to him with dear yearning in my voice: “Dress me.”
He dressed me. My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside him. The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ!

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