Below is a wonderful poem Audrey Hepburn wrote when she      was asked to share her  'beauty tips'.

            It was read at her funeral years later:

    For attractive lips , speak words of kindness,

    For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people,

    For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry,

    For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it a

        once a day. 

    For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone, 

    People, even more than things have to be restored, renewed,     

    revived, reclaimed and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

    Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one

    at the end of each of your arms.

    As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands;

    one for helping yourself and the other for helping others.

    If you share this with another woman, 

    you will boost another woman's self-esteem, and 

    she will know that you care about her. 

l

                      

                Wits and Wisdom learned in 

                        my seven decades of life.

                                God

                 If I say, there is no God ,

                I must be either totally blind

                in both my eyes or in mind

                Or I must be someone so arrogant

                stiff necked to have walked on this planet.

                How could I say that there is no God

                when my eyes behold  His handiwork

                all around me day after day

                and night after night.

                Can anyone look at the mesmerizing hues of sky at dawn

                when the sun leaves his chamber with all its majesty

                that no earthly king could stand in comparison.

                Even the blind with no sight to behold this beauty

                had ever denied the presence of God Almighty.

                For, they keep the  eyes of their heart wide open

                to see Him in their mind to craft songs like 

                " Blessed assurance"

                and " To God be the Glory, 

                Praise Him, Praise Him ! Be thou Exalted.' 

                Smelling God's love in the fragrance of flowers 

                Hearing His care in the sweet melodies of tweeting birds

                And sensing His touch in the embrace of friends and strangers

                Even the blind could see much deeper and higher than many of us

                living with wide eyes to see.

                Or haven't we wondered how a baby grow 

                                                    in the mother's womb

                Or our own bodies working so perfectly in unison

                 the brain with heart  and heart in turn with lungs 

                 and liver pumping live giving blood through

                 numerous paths of vessels in amazing co-ordination 

                that no regime in military could rival in comparison.

             You, who have denied God's existence so far

             for reason only you know.

            Please do take a moment to see the loveliness of sunlit sky 

            and the sparkling of starlit sky.

            Hear Him in the calling of birds 

            and patter of the rain that makes plants grow.

            See Him! Hear Him, and Come to know Him

             in and through everything He has created

            for you and me to embrace and enjoy an abundant life on earth!

What Have We Become

 Oh, Mighty God , Giver of life\

Awesome is Your name.

Almighty is Your power

Justice is Your heartbeat

Mercy is Your love song.

What a beautiful earth You made

What a joy, You want us to have.

So long, so badly we've messed this up

Beauty into chaos we have made it with our choices.

Patience all along You've shown us so far

Loving and waiting, You gave us many second chances

Father, have mercy, we are so dumb

To choose right from wrong, we've forgotten

                            somewhere along the way..

Good old path and good old ways

No more delight our hearts.

Stressed and joyless, we tarry along

mumbling and grumbling with no laughter at home. 

                        

                  There's a stream of trouble across my path

                               It is black and deep and wide.

                         Bitter the hour the future hath

                         When I cross it s swelling tide.

                         But I smile and sing and say:

                        " I will hope and trust alway;

                  I'll bear the sorrow that comes tomorrow, 

                        But I'll borrow none today."

                                   (Taken from the devotional-Streams in 

                                                                                                    the Desert-June 9)

                (Taken from the devotional Streams in the Desert)

                    O Thou of little faith, 

         God hath not failed thee yet!

       When all looks dark and gloomy,

                Thou dost so soon forget--

             Forget that He has led thee,

         And gently cleared thy way;

    On clouds has poured His sunshine, 

        And turned thy night to day.

        And if He's helped thee hitherto, 

       He will not fail thee now;

   How it must wound His loving heart

      To see thy anxious brow!

    Oh! doubt not any longer, 

   To Him commit thy way, 

Whom in the past thou trusted,

  And is " just the same today."

               July 4

                                              Something to Ponder.
           

I read this piece in a church's centennial celebration magazine. Since I found the statements valuable,  I thought of sharing it through my blog post.

1.Only God can turn a Mess into a Message; A Test into a Testimony, a Trial into a Triumph, and a        Victim into a Victory.

2. Don't ask God to guide your steps, if you are not willing to move your feet.

3. When you are tempted to lose patience with someone, think how patient God has been with you all      the time.

4. Life is an echo. What you send out comes back. What you sow, you reap. What you give, you get.
    What you see in others -exists in you.

5. Sometimes God lets you hit rock bottom so that you will discover that He is the rock at the bottom.

6.The Bible is meant to be the bread for daily use, not a cake for special occasion.

7. When you feel like you are drowning in life, take comfort that your Lifeguard walked on water.

8  Jesus died for you in public, so don't live for him in private.

9. If you kneel before God, you can stand before anyone or anything.

10. Be yourself. No matter what other people think of you, God made you this way for a reason.
      Besides, an original is always worth more than a copy.

11. Faith is like the W-Fi. It is invisible, but it has the power to connect you to what you need.

12. Don't be a part-time Christian when God is not a part-time Savior.

A Little Child shall Lead Them- Sulochana Vinayagamoorthy

This morning, I was reading the Classic Writings of Billy Graham, where Mr.Graham had tried to explain how we may be sincere in our desires to serve Christ, but that does not make us perfect or fault-free. To simplify his point, he chose a letter written by a five-year-old to her dad, a Scottish preacher, who was away in New Zealand on a mission tour.

'Dear father, I wrote all this myself. I send you a kiss from Elsie.' the child wrote. The father did see the crooked strokes, his child's struggle to print large capitals, and the absence of a single properly formed letter. Yet, he showed no displeasure nor blamed the child for her poor writing. Instead, he treasured the letter like an art piece. He knew for sure, it was the best his darling five-year-old could do to convey her love to him. The child had put her whole heart into the letter, sealed it with a kiss and sent it to him from faraway. How could anything be more precious to him than that ?

As I was reading the story, my thoughts reeled back to the time when I wrote somewhat a similar letter to my father, whom I lovingly called,Pappa. Probably, I too would have been around her age at that time. That summer, my mother, two older sisters and I were holidaying at our aunt's house in a hilly country side, skirted by cocoa and pepper plantation. My father couldn't join us on this trip due to work and that made me, the youngest of the five to miss him the most.


 So, whenever I saw my mom write  to my father, I scribbled something on a piece of paper and sent it along. And when the postman brought my father's letters, I eagerly awaited on my mom's lap to hear her read the part where my father had inquired about me. Then, one day, my mom came and handed me an envelope addressed to me. A letter for me? I couldn't believe my eyes.  My chubby cheeks beamed when I saw the handwriting of my dear father. The fact that he had written specially to me made me  squeal and run around the house showing the letter to everyone.

 Today, I cannot recall what my father had written in that letter, but I do remember of carrying the letter all day long  in my frock pocket (yes, we did have cute pockets in our dresses) and reading it again and again.  In a day or two, I could easily recite the letter by heart. Soon, it became a past time for my sisters and cousins to call upon me to recite the letter in front of others. Shy, I might have been by nature, but when it came to recite my father's letter, I didn't shy away at all. My curly hair pinned up in two colorful barretts, I stood there with my chin up and my squint eyes gleaming, and recited my father's entire letter for my onlookers amusement.


I wish I could say that I read my heavenly Father's letter (God's Word) too with the same fervor and devotion. Maybe at times. Other days, I do it because I ought to, rather than I love to. But, that doesn't mean that my Heavenly Father loves me less, nor His grace towards me is going to be shortened.   However, it's my sincere desire that I will regain my childlike trust and devotion, and  bring much delight to Him in the coming days, months and years.***