There's an old country song that says, "Some girls don't like guys like me, but some girls do!" It's true, I tell my teenage grandkids to take heart, not every girl, or guy, will be smitten by you. Some will think you're cute, some will not: some will like the way you swagger, some will think you're full of yourself: some can't stand anything about you: and others will like everything you do. Now, in this picture it is no mystery who is smitten.

I ran across this piece by Washington Irving on the meditations we have at the bedside of someone we love and have been loved by, as they pass away. I hope some may have these kind of thoughts when I die.

  "The grave of those we loved, what a place for meditation! There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments, lavished upon us, almost unheeded, in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness, of the parting scene. The bed of death, with all its stifled griefs, its noiseless attendance, its mute, watchful assiduities; the last testimonies of expiring love! The feeble, fluttering, thrilling, oh, how thrilling, pressure of the hand; the last fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us, even from the threshold of existence! The faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection."  W. Irving.
 

The following piece by Martineau, considers the paradox of those who are most holy, who may have the most sense of guilt. 

  "And hence, strange as it may seem, it is not the guilty that know the most guilt: it is the pure, the lofty, the faithful, that are for ever haunted by the sense of sin, and are compelled by it to throw themselves upon a love they never doubt yet cannot claim. To thoughtless observers of human nature this always seems the paradox of piety; that none burst into such passionate confessions as those who apparently have nothing to confess; that the more faithful they become, the less assuredly have they peace with themselves; that the further they retreat from the power of evil, the more does its sorrow sit upon their brow. 

Why do you hear from Fenelon words of humiliation that never escape a Richelieu? 

Why are the prayers of prophets and the hymns of saintly souls so pathetic in their penitence, so full of the plaintive music of baffled aspiration, like the cry of some bird with broken wing? It is because to them the truly infinite nature of holiness has revealed itself, and reveals itself the more, the higher they rise; because in its secret breathings to their hearts they recognize, not any romance of their own, but the communing Spirit of the living God." James Martineau.

  The pure affections, the noble admirations, the clear truth, the gentle pieties, of the young soul, are every ready to come forth and take their place of power above what is mean and selfish, if only they have the encouragement of sympathy and the fostering breath of a genial air around." 

James Martineau, photo from Philip B. Kunhardt Jr.'s book, The Joy of Life. 

  

  I picked up an old book titled "The Joy of LIfe" by Philip B. Kunhardt Jr. filled with 250 uplifting photographs, when I ran across this little guy pictured here, it just made my heart swell!

So many emotions as I looked at this little fella safe in the arms of his father. There is a light in his eyes and smile on his face that I wish every child could wear. That light comes from the love, security and safety a child feels when nurtured by loving parents. When threats come he falls back into his fathers arms, the greater the threat, the farther he scoots back into what he knows to be protective arms. One can only imagine how differently this child's future would be if the father in the picture were gone and there was nothing but vacancy behind this little boy. May it never be.

I'm going to preach on Acts 17 where it says God made the world and all the things in it; and in Him we live and move and have our being. I wrote this poem to emphasis, "In Him we live...." 

The giver of life

The joy of the infant’s first cry and tear,

The birth of love that brought him here.

The elk, the doe, the newborn fawn,

Blushing reds streak the breaking dawn.

The blade, the leaf, the flowers fruit,

The butterfly vacates, its crystalline suit.

Inspiration, art, epiphany:

Birthed deep within the soul of me.

The Spirit's voice, heavenly light.

Calling, 'leave the battle, stop the fight.'

Sins washed away, new hope, new start;

God breathes new life within the heart!

Photo by Michael Murrill