This may be about the cutest pair I've ever seen! Grandchildren excepted. I lean toward the melancholy side, but when I'm around children or see them in all their splendor, it cures what ails me. 

    "A laborer told his wife, on awakening from a curious dream, about four rats coming towards him. The first one was very fat, and was followed by two lean rats, and the rear rat was blind. The dream perplexed him and there was a legend that dreaming about rats denotes a coming calamity. He appealed to his wife concerning this, but she could not help him. His son, a sharp lad, who heard his father tell the story, volunteered to be the interpreter. "The fat rat," he said, "is the man who owns the saloon that you go to so often. The two lean rats are my mother and me, and the blind rat, father, is yourself." 

 "Above all, take the shield of faith", Eph. 6:16

 "It is reported of Satan that he says of learned men, "You do always overcome me. When I would exalt and promote you, you lift yourself in humility; and when I would throw you down, you lift yourself up in assurance of faith.' Faith makes the soul invincible; it makes the soul victorious; it leads captivity captive; it binds Satan in chains; it foils him at every weapon; and therefore, above all, labor to be rich in faith."     

Thomas Brooks.

  "If I wished to disgust a community with any particular idea, I would set a person talking about it and advocating it who would talk of nothing else. If I wished to ruin a cause completely, I would have a person thrust it into everyone's face, who would refuse to see any objections to it, who would accuse all opponents of unworthy motives, and who would thus exhibit his absolute slavery to it. Men have an instinct which tells them that such people as these are not trustworthy; that their sentiments and opinions are as valueless as those of children. If they talk with a pleasant spirit, we good-naturedly tolerate them; if they rant and scold and denounce, we hiss them, if we think it's worth while, or we applaud them as we would the feats of a dancing bear. If they say devilish things in a  heavenly sort of way, we hear them with a certain kind of pleasure, and take our revenge by despising them, and feeling malicious toward the cause they advocate." Timothy Titcomb.   

  "One of the most pitiable objects the world contains is a man of generous natural impulses that have grown sour, impatient, bitter, abusive, uncharitable and ungracious, by devotion to one idea, and the failure to impress it upon the world with the strength by which it possesses himself. Many of these fondly hug the delusion to themselves that they are martyrs, when, in fact, they are only suicides." Timothy Titcomb. 

  "There is a class of men and women in all Protestant communities who think it is a very neat thing to do good randomly. They sow broadcasting cheap seed, content to reap nothing at all, and pleasantly disappointed if they find here and there a stalk of corn to reward their sowing. They do not prepare their ground, they do not cultivate it at all, but they sow hoping that in some open place a seed may fall and germinate." Timothy Titcomb. 

  I like this quote because I think it is so common with many evangelicals that don't want to get their hands dirty but think they have done their Christian duty if they bring up Christ in a conversation not considering the circumstances, or they hurl a gospel tract or a verse at unwitting strangers. Gospel work is the work of the heart, there are no shortcuts.  

This is such a great story! I have to share it!

 I take a woman with me to the jail at times, to share her testimony of heart wrenching loss and soul bursting redemption. I finished preaching and it was "Ok" but more than a usual amount of distractions. And one guy at the very back was sprawled out and may have even slept! But when Sarah began and poured out her story with passion and tears, this guy began to listen. She shared a story of how a friend of hers was filled with so much toxic shame over his past that each time he would go by his mirror and look at himself, he would spit on his reflection. He was filled with self-loathing.
After the service this kid from the back came up to Sarah and wanted prayer but he was so overcome with emotion he could scarcely get out a word as his shoulders heaved and tears poured out and his voice was trembling and choking out his attempt to speak. The thing that broke him was the story of the guy that would spit on his reflection in the mirror. He was crying, Sarah was crying and all of heaven was too! And to think I could have stayed home and watched the ball game and missed the greatest match of all, Christ, stomping the head of the serpent!!!!

 I love children, I've reared five children and two grandchildren, and this poem captures the joy of children better than anything I've ever read. Enjoy -- 

  "We take shelter in children to escape oblivion. We ask the child to drag around the unwieldy weight of magic. To clap wildly. To believe in what we believe in no longer. We ask the child to keep the awe we forgot hot to hold. The fairy isn't the fairy. It's the child who is the fairy. It's the child who is the enchanted, a metaphor, a shape-shifter. My sons keep bursting out of their skin. They smell like poppies, warm earth, milk. And then one day, out of nowhere, they won't anymore. They are losing their baby teeth at what seems an alarming rate. Adult teeth bloom in their mouths. Their limbs grow longer like shadows. For whom is a child's childhood? I think it's for all of us. But it's not for when we are children. Our childhoods are for later." 
Orah Mark, I am the Tooth Fairy.