"I have Nothing" - Whitney Houston

Share my life
Take me for what I am
Cuz I'll never change
All my colors for you
Take my love
I'll never ask for too much
Just all that you are
And everything that you do

I don't really need to look
Very much farther
I don't wanna go
Where you don't follow
I don't hold it back again
This passion inside
Can't run from myself
There's nowhere to hide

Chorus:
Don't make me close one more door
I don't wanna hurt anymore
Stay in my arms if you dare
Must I imagine you there?
Don't walk away from me
I Have Nothing
Nothing
Nothing, if i don't have you (you-oo, you-oo, you)

You see through
Right to the heart of me
You break down my walls
With the strength of your love (mm..)
I never knew
Love like I known it's with you
Will the memories survive?
One I can hold on to

I don't really need to look
Very much farther
I don't wanna go
Where you don't follow
I don't hold it back again
This passion inside
Can't run from myself
There's nowhere to hide
You're the love I remember forever

Repeat Chorus (2X)
Don't walk away from me
Don't walk away from me
Don't you dare walk away from me
I have nothing
Nothing
Nothing, if I don't have you
You, if I don't have you

"By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name" (Hebrews 13:15).

Paul reminds us that we are to present our "bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God," and that this is merely our "reasonable service" (Romans 12:1).

"Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace" (Hebrews 4:16), praise His holy name, and look forward to "that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13)!

I believe that this is the kind of sacrifice that is pleasing to God, to praise him in the midst of pain, sorrow, suffering, fear as well as blessings.
I feel it is then that we can feel joy in spite of loss, or disappointment, or other grievous thing, and that is His grace working in us.

It certainly does.

Prayers for you, and your friends so that they would be mindful and offer you good food choices.

mmm perhaps I should pray for your dog, that he would remain strong and healthy and demand long walks every day.


”know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

A. The Christian adds another dimension to concern for the body.
i. The day you became a Christian, something happened to your body. Another dimension was added to your being.

"Father, Spirit, Lord Above" -

lovely TM.

QS, love the note of encouragement.


This is one of my favorites, rather lengthy.

The Paradox
By Alfred Noyes (b. 1880)

‘I Am that I Am’

ALL that is broken shall be mended;
All that is lost shall be found;
I will bind up every wound
When that which is begun shall be ended.
Not peace I brought among you but a sword
To divide the night from the day,
When I sent My worlds forth in their battle-array
To die and to live,
To give and to receive,
Saith the Lord.

Of old time they said none is good save our God;
But ye that have seen how the ages have
shrunk from my rod,
And how red is the wine-press wherein at
my bidding they trod,
Have answered and said that with Eden I
fashioned the snake,
That I mould you of clay for a moment,
then mar you and break,
And there is none evil but I, the
supreme Evil, God.
Lo, I say unto both, I am neither;
But greater than either;
For meeting and mingling in Me they
become neither evil nor good;
Their cycle is rounded, they know neither
hunger nor food,
They need neither sickle nor seed-time,
nor root nor fruit,
They are ultimate, infinite, absolute.
Therefore I say unto all that have sinned,
East and West and South and North
The wings of my measureless love go forth
To cover you all: they are free as the
wings of the wind.

Consider the troubled waters of the sea
Which never rest;
As the wandering waves are ye;
Yet assuaged and appeased and forgiven,
As the seas are gathered together under
the infinite glory of heaven,
I gather you all to my breast.
But the sins and the creeds and the
sorrows that trouble the sea
Relapse and subside,
Chiming like chords in a world-wide symphony
As they cease to chide;
For they break and they are broken
of sound and hue,
And they meet and they murmur and
they mingle anew,
Interweaving, intervolving, like waves:
they have no stay
They are all made as one with the deep,
when they sink and are vanished away;
Yea, all is toned at a turn of the tide
To a calm and golden harmony;
But I—shall I wonder or greatly care,
For their depth or their height?
Shall it be more than a song in my sight
How many wandering waves there were
Or how many colours and changes of light?
It is your eyes that see
And take heed of these things: they were
fashioned for you, not for Me.

With the stars and the clouds I have clothed
Myself here for your eyes
To behold That which Is. I have set
forth the strength of the skies
As one draweth a picture before you to
make your hearts wise;
That the infinite souls I have fashioned
may know as I know, Visibly revealed
In the flowers of the field,
Yea, declared by the stars in
their courses, the tides in their flow,
And the clash of the world’s wide
battle as it sways to and fro,
Flashing forth as a flame
The unnameable Name,
The ineffable Word,
I am the Lord.

I am the End to which the whole world strives:
Therefore are ye girdled with a
wild desire and shod
With sorrow; for among you all no soul
Shall ever cease or sleep or reach its goal
Of union and communion with the Whole,
Or rest content with less than being God.
Still, as unending asymptotes, your lives
In all their myriad wandering ways
Approach Me with the progress of the golden days;
Approach Me; for my love contrives
That ye should have the glory of this
For ever; yea, that life should blend
With life and only vanish away
From day to wider wealthier day,
Like still increasing spheres of light
that melt and merge in wider spheres
Even as the infinite years of the past
melt in the infinite future years.

Each new delight of sense,
Each hope, each love, each fear,
Widens, relumes and recreates each sphere,
From a new ring and nimbus of pre-eminence.
I am the Sphere without circumference:
I only and for ever comprehend
All others that within me meet and blend.
Death is but the blinding kiss
Of two finite infinities;
Two finite infinite orbs
The splendour of the greater of which absorbs
The less, though both like Love have
no beginning and no end.

Therefore is Love’s own breath
Like Knowledge, a continual death;
And all his laughter and kisses and tears,
And woven wiles of peace and strife,
That ever widen thus your temporal spheres,
Are making of the memory of your former years
A very death in life.

I am that I am;
Ye are evil and good;
With colour and glory and story and song
ye are fed as with food:
The cold and the heat,
The bitter and the sweet,
The calm and the tempest fulfil my Word;
Yet will ye complain of my two-edged sword
That has fashioned the finite and mortal
and given you the sweetness of strife,
The blackness and whiteness,
The darkness and brightness,
Which sever your souls from the formless
and void and hold you fast-fettered to life?

Behold now, is Life not good?
Yea, is it not also much more than the food,
More than the raiment, more than the breath?
Yet Strife is its name!
Say, which will ye cast out first from the
furnace, the fuel or the flame?
Would ye all be as I am; and know neither
evil nor good; neither life; neither death;
Or mix with the void and the formless till
all were as one and the same?

I am that I am; the Container of
all things: kneel, lift up your hands
To the high Consummation of good
and of evil which none understands;
The divine Paradox, the ineffable Word,
in whose light the poor souls that ye trod
Underfoot as too vile for their fellows
are at terrible union with God!
Am I not over both evil and good,
The righteous man and the shedder of blood?
Shall I save or slay?
I am neither the night nor the day,
Saith the Lord.
Judge not, oh ye that are round my
footstool, judge not, ere the hour be born
That shall laugh you also to scorn.

Ah, yet I say unto all that have sinned,
East and West and South and North
The wings of my measureless love go forth
To cover you all: they are free as
the wings of the wind.

But one thing is needful; and
ye shall be true
To yourselves and the goal and
the God that ye seek;
Yea, the day and the night shall
requite it to you
If ye love one another, if your
love be not weak.

Since I sent out my worlds in their
battle-array To die and to live,
To give and to receive,
Not peace, not peace, I have brought
among you but a sword,
To divide the night from the day,
Saith the Lord;
Yet all that is broken shall be mended,
And all that is lost shall be found,
I will bind up every wound,
When that which is begun shall be ended.

"Our Hold on the Planet" - Robert Frost

There is much in nature against us. But we forget:
Take nature altogether since time began,
Including human nature, in peace and war,
And it must be a little more in favor of man,
Say a fraction of one percent at the very least,
Or our number living wouldn't be steadily more,
Our hold on the planet wouldn't have so increased.

Glad to see you here TM.

TM, I enjoyed looking at the beautiful waterfalls on the site you mentioned. I saved a few. I was glad to see one of Glen Ellis in the White Mountain Region. I have visited there quite a bit in the past few years.

Hi QS

Thanks for pointing out this new forum.

The 20th Chapter of Chronicles, v 1-5 and onwards is a great example of the Lord's delivererance, and shows how the battle really does belong to the Lord.

In vs. 1 and 2, Jehoshaphat is warned, “a great multitude is coming against you.” The next verse tells us that he became afraid, and “turned his attention to seek the Lord; and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.”

Thanks for sharing. I will take a look at those later.



QS,

I will take a peak.

Hi TM & Debs,

mmm, If you want some coffee TM, the bible tells you the guy makes the coffee.

As for tea, a spot of Earl Gray might suit you.
Darjeeling is my favorite.

Thanks for sharing some thoughts about your faith. It would be nice if you could share some of the songs you write.

"In my life, my faith brings me comfort and a pray to visualize survival in the future. It also gives me hope of an life after I depart from this present human body. In my faith, I will make heaven my home one day as long as I keep walking the narrow path as best I can."

Thank you for sharing Tiffa, and Debs.




The
Wooden Bowl

A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year- old grandson.

The old man's hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered. The family ate together at the table. But the elderly and father's shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on the tablecloth.

The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess. 'We must do something about father,' said the son. I've had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor.'

So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner. There, Grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner. Since Grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl.

When the family glanced in Grandfather's direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye
as he sat alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food.


The four-year-old watched it all in silence.

One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps onthefloor. He asked the child sweetly, 'What are you making?' Just as sweetly, the boy responded, 'Oh,I am making a little bowl for you and Mama to eat your food in when I grow up. ' The four-year-old smiled and went back to work.

The words so struck the parents so that they were speechless. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done.

That evening the husband took Grandfather's hand and gently led him back to the family table. For the remainder of his days he ate every meal with the family. And for some reason, neither the husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk spilled, or the tablecloth soiled.

On a positive note, I've learned that, no matter what happens, how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles four things: a rainy day, the elderly, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.

I've learned that, regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life.

I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as making a 'life..'

I've learned that life smetimes gives you a second chance.

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.

I've learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you But, if you focus on your family, your friends, the needs of others, your work and doing the very best you can, happiness will find you.

I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right
decision.

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.

I've learned that every day, you should reach out and touch someone.

People love that human touch -- holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.

Loved the scenery.

Like the way this one has been put together.
"Don't Give Up" - Josh Groban

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls7ila3srzI&feature=related

It sure does.

Yes, Tom I can recognize how frustrating that is, but I would venture to say it is worth it, because that is the man you are, so to be true to yourself.

A real man - is going to be seen and described in different ways, we are all unique, some of the things I believe a real man is:

Strong, but sensitive
Confident but humble
Tough but kind
Emotionally balanced, laughs and cries as he pleases
Word is his bond
Willing to help others
Focused
Kind to himself
He has ethical ideals
Values family
Self sufficient
Responsible
Strong in faith but recognizing no-one is perfect


I have met men like this, but it does not mean they are necessarily the right man for me, it does mean I value them as a person and can respect them and wish them to be happy.


{{{{huggies}}} Tom.

If you try you may fail others, but if you don't try you fail yourself.

It was what someone I met online called me in the middle of a 'discussion' we were having.