The story is told of a spry lady who lived in a retirement home. She spotted an older and very distinguished gentleman who was a new face in her surroundings. Obviously a new resident, she promptly sat down in front of him and attempted to get his attention with warm smiles. She saw a husband in the making.

Growing uncomfortable, he asked, "May I help you?" She shot back, "You look like my third husband. The wave of your hair, your countenance, the strong hands."

Now very uncomfortable, he said, "Now, Ma’am, how many times did you say you have been married?" She smiled and said, "Twice".

Never give up hope.

QUOTE: Failure doesn't mean you'll never succeed; it will just take longer.

QUOTE: Our prospects are as bright as the promises of God.

THIS IS THE DAY

As far back as the 8^th century B.C., the Greek poet Hesiod wrote: "Would that I had not been allotted to this period, but might have died earlier or been born earlier." Who has not wished for such a suspension of the laws of time and place. Still, happiness comes from affirming that "this is the day that the Lord has made…" and that no matter what our circumstances, God can do great things through us.

QUOTE: When the outlook is bad, try the uplook.

THE SLICE OF BREAD = MEANING IN LIFE
Immediately after World War II, the Allied armies gathered up many hungry, homeless children and placed them in large camps. There they abundantly fed and took care of the children. However, at night they did not sleep well. They seemed restless and afraid.
Finally, a psychologist hit upon a solution. When they put the children to bed, they each received a slice of bread to hold. If they wanted more to eat, more was provided. This special slice was not to be eaten -- it was just to hold.
The slice of bread produced marvelous results. The children went to sleep, subconsciously feeling that they would have something to eat tomorrow. That assurance gave the children a calm and peaceful rest.
Today many people are like these children. They have plenty to eat and all their physical necessities and luxuries are satisfied. The reality is they still do not sleep well because of the uncertainties of tomorrow.
Is there anything that can rescue us from the emptiness of life?
They write books on "Positive Thinking," "Help Yourself," "Psychology Today," "Yoga," "Winning Through Intimidation," "Zen Practice," "Scientology," etc. Do these really make a difference?
We seriously pursue new forms of spiritual renewal, from the latest in physical or mind conditioning programs to group therapy. We search for something that will give meaning to our days and peace to us in our nights. As we search, I wonder if we have any idea of what it is we are looking for, and how would we know it if we found it? People have tried many things on the principle of "if it feels right, do it," only at some point to discover the feelings have faded.
They then renew the search for meaning and purpose.

Twixt the optimist and the pessimist

The difference is droll

The optimist sees the doughnut,

But the pessimist sees the hole.

BARB WIRE SICKNESS Herbert H. Farmer The Servant of the Word Charles Scribners

During the last war, a name was coined by French doctors for a disease which made its appearance in prison camps. They called it "barbed wire sickness." One of its symptoms was an appalling sense of futility and meaninglessness of existence. No matter what camp activities were organized, or with what vigor they were prosecuted, nothing could quite banish from the mind the awareness of the barbed wire enclosure, the isolation from any task which might have real and lasting significance.

QUOTE: "I have a new philosophy. I am only going to dread one day at a time." - Charlie Brown

QUOTE: Clinics are crowded with people suffering from a new kind of neurosis, a sense of total and ultimate meaninglessness of life Viktor Frankl

QUOTE: The central neurosis of our time is emptiness. Carl Jung

QUOTE: As one man said, if you’re not schizophrenic, you aren’t thinking straight.

LIVES OF QUIET DESPERATION Morning Glory, May 29, 1993

There is a relationship which makes life complete. Without that relationship, there is a void, a vacuum in life. Many people, even those who are well-known, can attest to that void.
For example, H.G. Wells, famous historian and philosopher, said at age 61: "I have no peace. All life is at the end of the tether." The poet Byron said, "My days are in yellow leaf, the flowers and fruits of life are gone, the worm and the canker, and the grief are

mine alone." The literary genius Thoreau said, "Most men live lives of quiet desperation."
Ralph Barton, one of the top cartoonists of the nations, left this note pinned to his pillow before taking his own life: "I have had few difficulties, many friends, great successes; I have gone from wife to wife, from house to house, visited great countries of the world, but I am fed up with inventing devices to fill up twenty-four hours of the day."

THE HOPE OF DYING
A seasick passenger leaned over the rail of the ship on a long and rough Atlantic crossing. He'd already turned several shades of green when a steward came along and tried to cheer him up: "Don't be discouraged, Sir. No one's ever died of seasickness.."
The nauseated passenger replied, "Don't say that. The hope of dying is the only thing that's keeping me alive!"

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE
George Moore tells of Irish peasants in the period of the Great Depression. They were put to work by the government in building roads. For a time the men worked well, sang their Irish songs, glad to be back at work again. But little by little they discovered that the roads they were building led nowhere, they just ran out in dreary bogs and stopped. And as the truth gradually dawned on them that they had been put to work solely to provide them employment and as an excuse for feeding them, the men grew listless and stopped singing. Commenting on the incident, the author said, "Roads to nowhere are difficult to build."

THEY WEREN’T ALLOWED TO LOOK UP
Several years ago a survivor of the Holocaust named Ernie Marx spoke in southern Indiana to some high school students. He told of one of the things that stood out in his memory.
"The Germans wouldn't let us look up at the sky. Because if you looked up, that gave you hope. We were not supposed to have hope. I saw many children bloodied beyond belief. Their only crime was they looked up."

ALLERGIC TO BULLETS

Francie Swartz, in Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work, tells about a guy named Jerry. He was the kind of guy who was always in a good mood, and a positive encourager. When asked how he was doing, he would reply, "If I was doing nay better, I’d be twins."

Jerry was a unique restaurant manager. Francie said, "One day, I said, ‘I don’t get it, you can’t possibly be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?’"

Jerry replied, "Each morning, I wake up and say to myself, ‘Jerry, you have 2 choices today, you can chose to be in good mood, or you can choose to be in a bad mood.’ I choose to be in a good mood. Life is all about choices."

Several years later, I heard that Jerry’s restaurant had been robbed. The thieves panicked and shot him. Jerry was rushed to the local trauma center and after 18 hours of surgery, and weeks in intensive car, he was released with bullet fragments still in his body.

I saw Jerry 6 months after the accident, and asked him "How are you doing?" He said, "If I were any better, I’d be twins." I asked what went through his mind when the robbery took place.

"When I was laying on the floor, I remembered I had 2 choices, I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live. When the paramedics wheeled me into the emergency room, I could tell by their faces, that they didn’t think I was going to make it.
"There was this big burly nurse shouting questions at me. She asked ‘Are you allergic to anything?’

"’Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply: ‘Bullets!’

"Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.’"

Jerry lived, thanks to the skill of doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude and the grace of God.

THE OPIATE OF HOPE "A fix for the Soul, in re:generation via The Washington Times

Karl Marx may have had something when he wrote that "religion is the opiate of the people," suggests William R. Mattox Jr. Marx meant it derisively, but Mattox believes religion and drugs are both ways - one good, the other bad - that are used to assuage the emptiness of life. "Most kids today who use drugs aren't looking to break the rules or to challenge authority, so much as they are looking for 'something else to get me through this life' (phrase borrowed from a drug culture song).

"Today, a new generation is looking for answers to life's ultimate questions... and unless this interest is satisfied, many young people curious about what James called 'pure, undefiled religion' may end up turning to 'pure, undefiled heroin' instead."

Those who have difficulty trusting God are kind of like the man who wanted to take his uncle Dudley on a plane ride. This was years ago, when planes were still a novelty. It was Uncle Dudley's 75 birthday and his nephew said "How would you like to go up with me?"

His uncle agreed and they went up and circled the old man's farm. When they set down, the nephew asked "Were you scared, Uncle Dudley?"

"No..., but I never did put my full weight down."

DESPAIR'S DESTRUCTIVENESS Charron

Despair is like forward children, who, when you take away one of their playthings, throw the rest into the fire for madness. It grows angry with itself, turns its own executioner, and revenges its misfortunes on its own head.

THE POWER OF THE PALM TREE Joseph Angus

The Scripture says: "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree." Let us see what this comparison means: "The palm grows not in the depths of the forest or in a fertile loam, but in the desert. Its verdure often springs apparently from the scorching dust. 'It is a friendly lighthouse, guiding the traveler to the spot where water is to be found.'"

The tree is remarkable for its beauty, its erect aspiring growth, its leafy canopy, its waving plumes, the emblem of praise in all ages. Its very foliage is the symbol of joy and exultation. It never fades, and the dust never settles upon it. It was, therefore, twisted into the booths of the feasts of tabernacles, was borne aloft by the multitude that accompanied the Messiah to Jerusalem, and it is represented as in the hands of the redeemed in heaven.

For usefulness, the tree is unrivaled. Gibbon says the natives of Syria speak of 360 uses to which the palm is applied. Its shade refreshes the traveler. Its fruit restores his strength. When his soul fails for thirst, it announces water. Its stones are ground for his camels. Its leaves made into couches, its boughs into fences and walls, and its fibers into ropes or rigging. Its best fruit, moreover, is borne in old age; the finest dates being often gathered when the tree has reached a hundred years. It sends, too, from the same root, a large number of suckers, which in time, form a forest their growth. What an emblem of the righteous in the desert of a guilty world!

An Indiana minister tells of the funeral he conducted for "Doug" an 18 year old biker who rode with a rough crowd. The T-shirt they buried him in said it all - "Ride hard - Die hard"

At the funeral, the sanctuary was filled with bikers. Speakers boomed out hard rock music prior to sermon. Casket held items felt important to Doug: Bottle of Jack Daniel's, and Drug Paraphernalia

The viewing after the sermon lasted 2 1/2 hours as the mourners filled the room with their crying and sadness... several literally half lifted the body up and hugged their dead friend. These bikers couldn't get over the fact that Doug was dead and he wasn't coming back.

They were a people who had NO HOPE.

On the 4th of July in 1952, Florence Chadwick, the 1st woman to swim the English Channel in both directions, attempted to swim from Catalina Island to the California Coast. the challenge was not so much the distance, but the bone chilling waters of the Pacific. To complicate matters, a dense fog lay over the entire area, making it impossible for her to see land. After about 15 hours in the water and within a 1/2 mile of her goal, Chadwick gave up. Later she told a reporter, "Look, I'm not excusing myself, but if I could have seen land, I might have made it."

Not long afterward she attempted the feat again. Once more a mist veil covered the coastline and she couldn't see the shore. But this time she made it because she kept reminding herself that land was there. With that confidence, she bravely swam on and achieved her goal. In fact, she broke the man's record by 2 hours.

Have a Dr. say he will never walk again, and you have a Glenn Cunningham, who set a world's record in 1934 for running a mile in 4 minutes, 6.7 seconds. Deafen a genius composer, and you have a Ludwig Van Beethoven. Have him or her born black in a society filled with racial discrimination, and you have a Booker T. Washington, a Harriet Tubman, a Marian Anderson, or a George Washington Carver. Make him the 1st child to survive in a poor Italian family of 18 children, and you have Enrico Caruso, Have him born of parents who survived a nazi concentration camp, paralyze him from the waist down when he is 4, and you have an incomparable concert violinist, Itzhak Perlman. Call him a slow learner, "retarded," and write him off as uneducable, and you have an Albert Einstein.

Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn was sent to a desolate Siberian prison camp because he made disparaging remarks about Stalin in a letter. After six gloomy years he suddenly discovered the joy of writing. He said, "Sometimes in a sullen work party with Tommy gunners barking about me, lines and images crowded in so urgently that I felt myself borne through the air, overleaping the column in my hurry to reach the work site and find a corner to write. At such moments I was both free and happy" (Gulag III, p. 99).

"Those who ride bicycles say that it is easier to ride up a hill at night than it is during daylight. Hills that are practically impossible of ascent may be negotiated at night. At night the cyclist can see but a few feet in front of him, and the faint light of his lantern gives him the illusion that the hill is either level or not steep. He feels that he can go the few feet more than his light shows and in this manner keeps on and on.

An artist once drew a picture. It represented a night scene: A solitary man is rowing a small boat across a lake; the wind is high and stormy, the billows, white and crested rage around his frail craft and only one star shines through the dark and angry sky above.

On that one star, the man is gazing intently as he rows on through the midnight storm.

Beneath the picture, the artist put these words: "If I lose that I'm lost."

It was a time of financial depression in Ireland. The people, faced with constant poverty, lack of jobs, scarcity of food, sensed the hopelessness of their situation and responded accordingly. The government did what they could: subsidies and food lines, but the populace remained disheartened.

In the food lines you could sense the despair and discouragement weighing heavily down on the people and it seemed that nothing could be done to change their attitudes.

Then, one of the government officials came up with a plan - give the people a job to do, a purpose to their lives and their despondency would disappear. Quickly, a project was agreed upon and the outline of their plan put into motion. Those who could work were organized into small groups with supervisors and were set to work building new roads in the countryside. It seemed like a miracle. Almost overnight the Irish became again a proud people. They began to feel their self-worth, they walked straighter, and spoke with hope.

The day came, however, when one of the workers asked the supervisor where the road was leading. "Nowhere," was the reply. Word spread through the small groups of workers and the feeling of self worth disappeared.