"A LOT LIKE HEAVEN"

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"Long, long ago I learned to love those rolling hills and open plains.
To me it’s heaven.
There, if the sun is shinin’ down or if the dark clouds send the rain,
It’s still like heaven.
To me it's heaven.

Here comes the prairie sun.
It’s morning!
I wake and give the world this warnin’,
I’m mighty glad that I was born in
A land that’s close to heaven.

All through the day the plains I’m roamin’.
My heart has nowhere to be homin’.
I make my camp at twilight’s gloamin’
And there I’m close to heaven."

By Bob Nolan

Source: From the painting of Tom Cox Fine Arts

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ON THE DAY I DIE

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On the day I die a lot will happen.
A lot will change.
The world will be busy.
On the day I die, all the important appointments I made
will be left unattended.
The many plans I had yet to complete
will remain forever undone.
The calendar that ruled so many of my days
will now be irrelevant to me.
All the material things I so chased and guarded and treasured
will be left in the hands of others to care for or to discard.

The words of my critics which so burdened me
will cease to sting or capture anymore.
They will be unable to touch me.
The arguments I believed I’d won here will not serve me
or bring me any satisfaction or solace.

All my noisy incoming notifications and texts and calls
will go unanswered.
Their great urgency will be quieted.

My many nagging regrets will all be resigned to the past,
where they should have always been anyway.
Every superficial worry about my body that I ever labored over;
about my waistline or hairline or frown lines, will fade away.

My carefully crafted image,
the one I worked so hard to shape for others here,
will be left to them to complete anyway.
The sterling reputation I once struggled so greatly to maintain
will be of little concern for me anymore.

All the small and large anxieties that stole sleep from me each night
will be rendered powerless.
The deep and towering mysteries about life and death
that so consumed my mind will finally be clarified
in a way that they could never be before while I lived.
These things will certainly all be true on the day that I die.

Yet for as much as will happen on that day,
one more thing that will happen.
On the day I die, the few people who really know
and truly love me will grieve deeply.

They will feel a void.

They will feel cheated.

They will not feel ready.
They will feel as though a part of them has died as well.

And on that day, more than anything in the world
they will want more time with me.
I know this from those I love and grieve over.

And so knowing this, while I am still alive
I’ll try to remember that my time with them is finite
and fleeting and so very precious—
and I’ll do my best not to waste a second of it.

I’ll try not to squander a priceless moment worrying about
all the other things that will happen on the day I die,
because many of those things
are either not my concern or beyond my control.

Friends, those other things have an insidious way
of keeping you from living even as you live;
vying for your attention, competing for your affections.
They rob you of the joy of this unrepeatable, uncontainable, ever-evaporating
Now with those who love you and want only to share it with you.

Don’t miss the chance to dance with them while you can.

It’s easy to waste so much daylight in the days before you die.

Don’t let your life be stolen every day by all that you believe matters,
because on the day you die, much of it simply won’t.

Yes, you and I will die one day.
But before that day comes: let us live..

~ John Pavlovitz

Source: Lessons Learned in Life
April 20, 2017

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CHEERFUL THOUGHTS LIGHTEN DARKEST FEARS

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Cheerful thoughts like sunbeams
Lighten up the "darkest fears,
"
For when the heart is happy,

There's just no time for tears. 


And when the face is smiling,
It's impossible to frown,
And when you are "high-spirited,
"
You cannot feel "low-down."

For the nature of our attitude
Toward circumstantial things,

Determines our acceptance
Of the problems that life brings.

And since fear and dread and worry
Cannot help in any way,

It's much healthier and happier
To be cheerful every day.

And if you'll only try it
You will find, without a doubt,

A cheerful attitude's something
No one should be without.

For when the heart is cheerful,

It cannot be filled with fear,
And without fear, the way ahead,
Seems more distinct and clear.

Helen Steiner Rice (1900-1981
www.HelenSteinerRice.com

Source: www.Inspiration Line.com

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I AM PEACEFUL

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Be still, and create a relaxing space 

to move into the silent place within yourself.

Breathe deeply for several minutes to allow yourself

to connect with your inner source of power.

Once calm you'll more easily connect to your holy observer.

It's the private residence of your Soul.

Your spirit adores truthfulness, 
and in quietude
you can seek out and unearth your truth.

If you're struggling, 
go into it until
you find the cause, so it can be healed.

Move beyond the flurry and prattle of life

into sweet serenity, and submit to stillness.

Let go of the lure to indulge 
in
feelings of stress, urgency, and crisis.

Your vibration is uplifted in silence,
so seek solitude regularly

to listen to the voice of your highest self
and awaken your 
divine insight;
this harmony gives birth to profound tranquility.


~By Michelle Mullady

Source: Inspiration Line dot com

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