Observation

Recently I was visited by a very good friend who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, and I asked her what she had observed. “Nothing in particular,” she replied. I might have been incredulous had I not been accustomed to such responses, for long ago I became convinced that the seeing see little.
How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening Nature after her winter’s sleep. I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable convolutions; and something of the miracle of Nature is revealed to me.-- Helen Keller

We cannot rely merely on sight! We must rely on all of our senses in order to full understand anything.

Optimism

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. I try to increase the power God has given me to see the best in everything and every one, and make that Best a part of my life. -- Helen Keller

Hope

Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free. Once I knew only darkness and stillness. Now I know hope and joy. Once I fretted and beat myself against the wall that shut me in. Now I rejoice in the consciousness that I can think, act and attain heaven. My life was without past or future; death, the pessimist would say, "a consummation devoutly to be wished." But a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living. Night fled before the day of thought, and love and joy and hope came up in a passion of obedience to knowledge. Can anyone who escaped such captivity, who has felt the thrill and glory of freedom, be a pessimist? -- Helen Keller

Happiness

Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they could be! Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life, — if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing. --Helen Keller 

We should not base our happiness in what we have or don't have. I have had many good things happen in my life as well as bad, and I am happy for both. God has taught me so much more through the bad things than the good. I appreciate the tough times because of what I have learned through them. My mom took her own life a little over 4 years ago. God held onto me the whole time. There were brief periods of time when our heavenly Father made Himself feel distant from me, but he was doing so to teach me to rely on Him so much more than I did before, and I did learn and I am still learning now how to fully rely on Him. We learn so much about ourselves and God through everything that happens in our lives, whether good or bad, big or small. I have had my times of wanting to turn my back on God, and He lets us question Him, because He knows without some questioning, we cannot have genuine faith.

A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships. -- Helen Keller

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. -- Helen Keller

Calling

"If God has given you a dream and a calling, do whatever is in your hand to do right now. I like to say, 'bloom where you're planted'."
--Francesca Battistelli

God gives us the opportunities to follow His will and calling for us. Like an acorn must turn into an oak tree when placed in fertile soil, is watered and occasionally has sun pour down on it, we given the right conditions and opportunities will grow properly. As Helen Keller once said, "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."

We have to keep our eyes open to what God is doing. When we miss a "door", often another is opened, but often times we realize we missed the "door" and going back, we try to open it and don't realize another has opened for us to go through.

Amazing Lunch

 

amazing lunch: how can it be, that these four crabs would die for me

Added February 24 By Paul Waggoner

You and Mary Wanas like this.

Mary Wanas

hahaha, very funny caption...

February 24 at 4:52am

Chrystal Leigh

Dweeb.

February 24 at 9:13am

Paul Waggoner

Chrystal, i just want to say that youre the only person i know that still uses the word dweeb. i seriously love that word it cracks me up - please keep it in your vocabulary. i'll try and start using it myself... maybe we can pass it on to the next generation of spazzes

February 24 at 9:19am

Mike Satterfield

dweeby spazz

February 24 at 2:13pm

Tyler Quick

I cried a little.

February 24 at 3:04pm

Chrystal Leigh

thanks Paul. You crack me up sometimes. I think it's funny that mike called you a dweeby spazz.

February 24 at 3:10pm

Mike Satterfield

Its only one step up from a spazzy dweeb, but then my opinion of Paul is improving...lol

February 24 at 3:13pm

Chrystal Leigh

I totally love the fact that we are having a discussion about dweebs and spazziness in the comments part of Paul's picture.

February 24 at 3:14pm

Paul Waggoner

Well we can't forget the nerd bombers either... They're the skeeziest of them all. Nerd bombers are like a dork on pop rocks and coke after you just beat one at pogs

February 24 at 5:24pm

Mike Satterfield

Don't diss pogs you poser!

February 24 at 6:54pm

Tim Quick

great to see your mug tonight Paul! Obviously Delfin's too!

February 24 at 8:40pm

Chrystal Leigh

skeeziest? who uses that word anymore? LMAO!!!!

February 25 at 8:39am

Chrystal Leigh

And look who's talking Mike, calling Paul a poser!!!

February 25 at 8:40am

Mike Satterfield

That's it Chrystal. I'm shaving your head next time I see you!

February 25 at 9:19am

Chrystal Leigh

first off, I'll probably end up shaving my own head. second off, you've never met me in person, and third, who knows when you will.

February 25 at 10:06am

Mike Satterfield

stalking...*cue Jaws theme*

February 25 at 6:57pm

Paul Waggoner

You're all skuzz buckets

February 26 at 6:37am

Chrystal Leigh

and you're the skuzziest of us all Paul.

February 26 at 8:13am

Chrystal Leigh

Mike, that's a little creepy.

February 26 at 8:15am

Who Christ is

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. –  C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, pages 40-41. 

The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive -- St. Irenaeus

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
C.S. Lewis


No matter what we do, God is still God. We cannot change who He is or what He is doing in our world. God is sovereign--having complete independent power and control. Sometimes we don't want Him to be sovereign, but it takes the burden off of us and our shoulders; it puts full responsibility on God instead of us. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't take responsibility for our own actions, but rather that an individual is responsible for oneself. God is responsible for mankind as a whole, since He created us and sacrificed Himself for us. Yes we need to help keep each other accountable, but we need not take full responsibility for what others do. A person's choices is a person's choice. God changes hearts, and we need to gently encourage others to follow God.

Psalm 13

Psalm 13

1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts,
And every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3 Look on me and answer, O Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
4 my enemy will say, "I have overcome him,"
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
for he had been good to me.


I love the transition David makes from pouring out his heart in verses 1 and 2, to prayer in verses 3 and 4, and praising God, before God does anything to help David, in verses 5 and 6. David thanks God before his prayer is answered, because he knew God is always faithful and loving, and answers prayer. I think we often times forget to praise and thank God for what he does, has done and will do. We should praise God more with everything we have, for He gives it all to us.