Shared Wisdom: Words For The New Year

Christmas and the New Year is always a time when I find myself digging through “old stuff”.  This is partly because, as I acquire various gifts for people throughout the year, I put them in “special places” which I then forget about.  Therefore I have to search high and low for them, which leads me to look in places that I don’t check into normally.  And so top shelves and boxes and bottom drawers yield a treasure trove of gifts, new gems, words that I have squirrelled away that now come to light to be shared with others.  Enjoy!

“When working with others, leave the results to God.”             (Anonymous)

“What makes us special is the signature of God on our lives.”           (Max Lucado)

“To expect life to be tailored to our specifications is to invite frustration.”       (Anonymous)

“Everyone has a talent.  What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.”          (Erica Jong)

“Fatherly and motherly hearts often beat wise and warm in the breasts of bachelor uncles and maiden aunts; and it is my private opinion that these worthy
creatures are a beautiful provision of nature for the cherishing of other people’s children.”           (Louisa Mae Alcott)

“Contentment is the philosopher’s stone, which turns all it touches into gold; the poor man is rich with it, the rich man poor without it.”     (Proverb)

“Life is like a blanket too short.  You pull it up and your toes rebel, you yank it down and shivers meander about your shoulders; but cheerful folks manage
to draw their knees up and pass a very comfortable night.”              (Marion Howard)

“The longer I live the more I am convinced that the one thing worth living for and dying for is the privilege of making someone more happy and more
useful.  No man who ever does anything to lift his fellows ever makes a sacrifice.”              (Booker T. Washington)

“Grant to me that I may be made beautiful in my soul within, and that all external possessions be in harmony with my inner man.  May I consider the wise man
rich, and may I have such wealth as only the self-restrained man can bear or endure.”         (Prayer of Socrates)

“I’ve learned to hold everything loosely because it hurts when God pries my fingers from it.”          (Corrie ten Boom)

“The burden of suffering seems to be a tombstone hung around our necks.  Yet in reality it is simply the weight necessary to hold the diver down while
he is searching for pearls.”                                                              (Julius Richter)

And this last one is truly one to ponder on:

“Never underestimate yourself or what God can do in your life because remember, professionals built the Titanic, but amateurs built the ark!”
                                                                                                                                                                                (Anonymous)