Love...

One of the loveliest summations of what love is was written by, Arthur Gordon, in his great book, Through Many Windows:

Love…is a shining thing, like a golden fire or a silver mist. It comes very quietly, you can’t command it, but you can’t deny it, either. When it does come, you can’t quite see it or touch it, but you can feel it-inside of you and around you and the person you love. It changes you; it changes everything. Colors are brighter, music is sweeter, funny things are funnier. Ordinary speech won’t do-you grope for better ways to express how you feel. You read poetry. Maybe you even try to write it…. Oh, it’s so many little things. Waiting for the phone to ring, opening the box of flowers. It’s holding hands in a movie; it’s humming a sad little tune; it’s walking in the rain; it’s riding in the convertible with the wind in your hair. It’s the quarrelling and making up again. It’s that first drowsy thought I the morning and that last kiss at night.”
 

Check out this very interesting write-up on Love and Sex by Joe L. Wheeler.

THE STAGES OF LOVE

God designed us to take joy in natural stages, including the natural stages of love.

His plan is simple but beautiful. First, we watch our parents: the love they show us is the love we shall pass on. Second, we experience the love of God, which becomes the catalyst for our philosophy of love. Third, we love the innocent and pure love of childhood-friendship in its most disinterested form. Then there is the love of adolescence. If we preserve our virginity until marriage (God’s plan for us), this teen period will be a time for developing some of life’s stronger friendships. In this time of seasoning, of gradually developing values to live by, there is no place for sexual passion, which can do nothing at this stage but destroy, disillusion, and rob us of one of God’s greatest gifts; coming to the marriage bed as virgins. Adolescence is followed by young adulthood, time for us to be blinded with the rapture of first love; time for us to compare our pasts, presents, and futures, in order to see if we are truly compatible; time for us to see if our families will be compatible-for we do indeed marry families; time for us to discuss God and church and how big a role we would allocate to them. Then and only then are we ready to think seriously about marriage and family. God designed the process to crescendo as the marriage day nears, culminating in a wedding without guilt, stigma, or regrets.

Today’s media leaders seem determined to destroy all of this. They sell us a bill of goods. They tell us, as did the serpent in Eden, that God lies, that instant gratification will make us gods. They tell us that modesty, virginity, purity and integrity are for fools. They tell us that minds and hearts and souls don’t matter at all; all that really matters is self-gratification, gusto. They tell us-over and over and over-that sex has nothing to do with friendship, love, respect, commitment, or being soul mates. Instead, they claim that sex is an acquired skill, like golf or hockey, and the more teachers we have in this respect, the better… There is no magic to love anymore. No hauntingly beautiful, gradual unfolding of the petals of love, leading up to the ultimate full flowering of marriage and a lifetime together. No, in today’s fiction and celluloid portrayals, there are no courtships. There are not even any preliminaries! Boy meets girl, man meets woman, and bam! If the chemistry is ripe-and it apparently almost always is-before the relationship is more than minutes old, before they so much as date awhile in order to see whether or not they even like each other, before they so much as hold hands, before they so much as experience the rapture of that first gentle kiss…before any of this, they are nude and in bed with each other!

The truth that seems to have been forgotten in our modern era is that sexual purity before marriage nurtures and preserves the magic of romantic love.

Check this out...

 So, I just thought I should put this up now..It spoke volumes to me, especially when I saw it in this version..It's from the 'good news' version of the bible. (I love having different bibles in different versions, i.e; king James, new living translation, new century version, etc)..hope it speaks to you too..

"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. The wise sometimes go hungry, and the educated don't always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time..." Ecclesiastes 9:11

Three Rules For Living

    To succeed in life you must do these three things:

     1) Decide what’s important. The story is told of a family who moved to the country side to get away from the city. They decided to raise cattle so they bought a ranch. One day a friend visited them and asked what they’d named it. Dad said, ‘I wanted to call it The Flying-W, but Mom wanted to call it The Suzy-Q. One of our sons liked The Bar-J, but our daughter preferred The Lazy-Y. So we compromised and called it The Flying-W, Suzy-Q, Bar-J, Lazy-J Ranch.’ The friend asked, ‘How are your cattle doing?’ Dad replied, ‘We don’t have any. They didn’t survive the branding.’ Come on; decide what’s important to you!

©   2) Prioritize your time. Too many of us are like the store owner who got so busy trying to keep the place clean that he forgot to open the front door. For those in business, the reason you’re in business is to serve customers and make a profit, not get distracted by secondary things. Base your life’s decisions on your priorities. And if you need help figuring out what they are, ask God: ‘For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.’

© 3) Learn to motivate yourself. Most times, nobody else will. When tragedy struck his life, we read: ‘David encouraged himself in the Lord…’ (1^st Samuel 30:6). You need to learn how to do that too. Jude writes: ‘…building up yourselves…praying in the Holy Ghost’ (Jude v.20). To succeed in life you must learn to encourage yourself, pray and build yourself up.

Remember, ‘For the Lord gives wisdom…’ Proverbs 2:6

What Colour Will Your Christmas Be?

I'm sure almost everyone knows that very popular, evergreen Christmas song "White Christmas"..the one that goes..'I'm dreaming of a white Christmas"? yes, that one. It's definitely one of the greatest Christmas songs (to me at least). I know the phrase 'white Christmas' and the lyrics of the song imply a "snowy" Christmas, and I live in a country where we experience our own special version (a harmattan Christmas ) but that doesn't make me love the song any less. 

This is why I dream of a white Christmas... To me, a white Christmas, is one where there is lots of love, joy and excitement. A Christmas where there are much more smiling faces than sad faces. A Christmas filled with a level of lightheartedness that is almost palpable...I can go on and on, but in a nutshell, that is  what my white Christmas means to me.. So, I've come to realize that so many people dream of Christmas in a lot of different colours.. Let's take little Theresa for instance,

My Children? or Yours?

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said,

Speak to us of Children.

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of to-morrow, which you cannot visit,

Not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

And He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

So He loves the bow that is stable.

Things You Cannot Recover

A young lady was waiting for her flight in the boarding room of a big airport. As she would need to wait many hours, she decided to buy a book to spend her time. She also bought a packet of cookies. She sat down in an armchair, in the VIP room of the airport, to rest and read in peace. Beside the armchair where the packet of cookies lay, a man sat down in the next seat, opened his magazine and started reading. When she took out the first cookie, the man took one also.

She felt irritated but said nothing. She just thought: “What a nerve! If I was in the mood I would punch him for daring!” For each cookie she took, the man took one too. This was infuriating her but she didn't want to cause a scene. When only one cookie remained, she thought: “ah... What would this abusive man do now?” Then, the man, taking the last cookie, divided it into half, giving her one half. Ah! That was too much! She was much too angry now! In a huff, she insulted the man, took her book, her things and stormed to the boarding place. When she sat down in her seat, inside the plane, she looked into her bag to take her eyeglasses, and, to her surprise, her packet of cookies was there, untouched, unopened! She felt so ashamed!! She realized that she was wrong... She had forgotten that her cookies were in her bag. The man had shared his cookies with her, without feeling angered or bitter.

...while she had been very angry, thinking that she was sharing her cookies with him.

And now there was no chance to explain herself...nor to apologize.”

There are 4 things that you cannot recover.

The cake...

...after it's eaten!

The word...

...after it?s said!

The occasion...

... after the loss!

The time...

...after it?s gone!

Funny... (a tad bit controversial?)

Big Yellow Taxi

From the depths of my fave box, here's an amazing song. This is from a group called 'Counting Crows' ft. Vanessa Carlton. It's titled 'big yellow taxi'. The song is one of my favourites cos of the beautiful lyrics and the powerful message behind them…Enjoy

Joke: Sister Sister

There were two nuns... One of them was known as Sister Mathematical (SM), and the other one was known as Sister Logical (SL). It is getting dark and they are still far away from the convent. SM: Have you noticed that a man has been following us for the past thirty-eight and a half minutes? I wonder what he wants. SL: It's logical He wants to rape us. SM: Oh, no! At this rate he will reach us in 15 minutes at the most! What can we do? SL: The only logical thing to do of course is to walk faster. SM: It's not working. SL: Of course it's not working. The man did the only logical thing. He started to walk faster, too. SM: So, what shall we do? At this rate he will reach us in one minute. SL: The only logical thing we can do is split. You go that way and I'll go this way. He cannot follow us both. So the man decided to follow Sister Logical. Sister Mathematical arrives at the convent and is worried about what has happened to Sister Logical.

Live your best life..

No post in days. So sorry, I was just caught up in my very active and bubbling social life, you know, all the and shows and whatnot... Yeah Right! my social life is about as interesting as watching a bee buzzing around for hours. Sad? I know. I've had the same friends for years, most of whom are not more sociable than I am, I've hung out at the same places for years,  lets see, the cinemas, my two favourite restaurants (both at Ikeja), Chinese food once in a while (parent's treat),...a lot of fast food(don't judge me)..and that's about it. 

I'm sure someone somewhere can relate to this... Bottom line, I basically live a humdrum life! Well, my dear friend, Oprah Winfrey says 'live your best life'..I've made up my mind, and I'm going to do just that. Enough buzzing around, I'm gonna start LIVING, in the best way  God's grace and mercy allows me to. In the words of 'Mary Mary' I'm going to: live more, want more, dance more, laugh more, be a little smarter, work a little harder, hug a little longer, and be a little stronger.. so help me God!

God promises to give you something to laugh about.

Job 8:20-21

So, are you a smiler or a frowner? Do you naturally notice happy things, or are you a walking vessel of gloom and doom? How about laughing? Do you remember the last time you laughed until your sides hurt and your eyes watered and you begged for mercy? However long it's been, whatever your natural disposition, God promises to give you something to laugh about. He promises to walk right into your most depressing day and turn things around. God didn't put you here to see how awful he could make you feel. He put you here to glorify him and to enjoy life. So invite him into your day, and tell him you really need something to laugh about. Watch him do a miracle on your behalf. No heart is too hard; no day is too far gone, when the Maker of laughter keeps his promise...
As Lagbaja would say: show me your '32'.

Everyone should listen to this song (Preferably watch the video) once everyday!

Who is SHE?

Something's wrong. The modern woman is on major overload. She struggles to find time in her day to swap hats among the numerous ones she wears: Wife, Caregiver, Employee, Mother, Taxi Driver, Volunteer, Teacher, Neighbour, Chef, Counselor, Friend. And she fights to catch her breath between all her duties, she is bombarded with conflicting messages every time she turns on the TV, fixes dinner, runs on her treadmill, or sits down to a meeting at work. These messages attempt to define where she fits in the world, as well as her relationships, her spirituality, and her identity as a woman. She struggles to feel beautiful when she's probably not the superfit woman the media portrays as ideal. 

Intimacy eludes her, and the feeling of being unprotected overwhelms her in a generation ravaged by the breakdown of family. She wrestles with loneliness in an age that has lost the art of mentoring. She is confused in trying to figure out what it means to be truly feminine amidst the feminist messages screaming all around her. Purity of both body and mind is a battle for the married as well as the unmarried, and the younger as well as the older woman-when sex sells and the world treats it so casually. She finds physical, emotional and spiritual boundaries rare or nonexistent. Purpose is difficult to discover in a time that glorifies worldly success and downplays faithfulness to family, friends and God. And freedom is tough to find even for the woman who has fought to overcome past hurts and baggage. It's no wonder she struggles!

You want to be your best, give and get the most from life...but just what does that mean? And how do you accomplish those things?...Stay tuned.

Love, Love, Love!

"Love... is a shining thing, like a golden fire or a silver mist. It comes very quietly, you can't command it, but you can't deny it either. When it does come, you can't quite see it or touch it, but you can feel it - inside of you and around you and the person you love. It changes you; it changes everything. Colors are brighter, music is sweeter, funny things are funnier. Ordinary speech won't do - you grope for better ways to express how you feel. You read poetry. Maybe you even try to write it... Oh, it's so many little things. Waltzing in the dark, waiting for the phone to ring, opening the box of flowers. It's holding hands in a movie; it's humming a sad little tune; it's walking in the rain; it's riding in a convertible with the wind in your hair. it's the quarreling and making up again. it's that first drowsy thought in the morning and that last kiss at night." - Arthur Gordon.

Wow! Do people still love like this these days? I hope so, cos love really is a beautiful thing, and the best part is - GOD IS LOVE...need I say more? Hmm, I know when I'm ready (yep, I said it) my 'story' will read something like this...except the 'walking in the rain' part..cos I just don't get it. Lol.

Definitely one of my 'Top 5'!

Please enjoy this beautiful, beautiful song by Alexandra Burke. 'Hallelujah'.

What on earth am I here for?

 'You don't have to be a quantum scientist or a chin-stroking philosopher to find yourself asking this question. Everybody does. Something inside of all of us says there must be a bigger purpose to life than work, church, hanging out, and all that. The miraculous bundle of talents, energy and potential that makes up 'you' must have a bigger purpose right? So, what on earth is it? Things start to make more sense when you change the question slightly. It's actually much more profound than ;What am I here for?' it's 'Who am I here for?'.

..I didn't write this actually, got it from one really nice devotional. So it occurred to me, that too many people, are living really small and narrow lives. Really, so many of us have probably never asked the question 'What am I here for?' not to talk of 'Who?'...me thinks this world would be a better place of more people started asking themselves this question.