Most of us have now learned to live with “voice mail” as a necessary part of our daily lives. But have you ever wondered what it would be like if God decided to install voice mail?

Imagine praying and hearing the following:

Thank you for calling heaven.

For English press 1
For French press 2
For all other languages press 0

Please select one of the following options:
Press 1 for Requests
Press 2 for Thanksgiving
Press 3 for Complaints
Press 4 for all other inquiries

I’m sorry, all our angels and saints are busy helping other sinners right now. However, your prayer is important to us, and we will answer it in the order it was received. Please stay on line.

If you would like to speak with:
God, Press 1
Jesus, Press 2
Holy Spirit, Press 3
If you would like to hear King David sing a Psalm while you are holding. Press 4

To find a loved one who has been assigned to Heaven, Press 5, then enter his or her social security number, followed by the # (pound sign). If you receive a negative response, please hang up and try area code 666.

For reservations at Heaven, please enter J-O-H-N, followed by the numbers 3:16.

For answers to nagging questions about dinosaurs, the age of the earth, life on other planets, and where Noah’s Ark is, please wait till you arrive.

Our computers show that you have already prayed today. Please hang up and try again tomorrow.

The office is now closed for the weekend to observe a religious holiday. Please pray again on Monday after 9:30 a.m. If you are calling after hours and need emergency service, please call your local pastor.

Thank you for having a Heavenly Day!

“We are born into a vast room whose walls consist of a thousand doors of possibility. Each door is flung open to the world outside, and the room is filled with light and noise. We close some of the doors deliberately, sometimes with fear, sometimes with calm certainty. Others seem to close themselves, some so quietly that we do not even notice.”

-Terry Teachout

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask How are you?
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say,”hi”

You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….
Thrown away.

Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

Dear Friend,

As You got up this morning, I watched you and hoped you would talk to me, even if it was just a few words, asking my opinion or thanking me for something good that happened in your life yesterday but I noticed you were too busy trying to find the right outfit to put on and wear to work or class. I waited again. When you ran around the house or dorm getting ready I knew there would be a few minutes for you to stop and say hello, but you were too busy. At one point you had to wait fifteen minutes with nothing to do except sit in a chair. Then I saw you spring to your feet. I thought you wanted to talk to me but you ran to the phone and called a friend to get the latest gossip. I watched as you went to school and work and I waited patiently all day long. With all your activities, I guess you were too busy all day to say anything to me. I noticed that before lunch you looked around, maybe you felt embarrassed to talk to me, that is why you didn’t bow your head. You glanced three or four tables over and you noticed some of your friends talking to me briefly before they ate, but you didn’t. That’s okay. There is still more time left, and I have hope that you will talk to me even yet.

You went home and it seems as if you had lots of things to do. After a few of them were done, you turned on the TV or the net; I don’t know if I like TV or computers or not, just about anything goes there and you spend a lot of time each day in front of them, not thinking about anything-just enjoying the show. I waited patiently again as you watched TV and ate your meal but again you didn’t talk to me. At bedtime I guess you felt too tired. After you said goodnight to your family you plopped into bed and fell asleep in no time. That’s okay because you may not realize that I am always there for you. I’ve got patience, more than you will ever know. I even want to teach you how to be patient with others as well. Because I love you so much, a long time ago I left a wonderful place called Heaven and came to Earth. I gave it up so that I could be ridiculed and made fun of. and I even died so you wouldn’t have to take my place. I love you so much that I wait everyday for a nod, praise or thought or a thankful part of your heart. It is hard to have a one-sided conversation. Well you are getting up again and once again I will wait with nothing but love for you hoping that today you will give me some time. Have a nice day!

Love Always, Your Friend,
Jesus

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.

Boy: I saw her today…
Girl: I saw him today…
Boy: It seems like it’s been forever…
Girl: I wonder if he still cares…
Boy: She looks better than before…
Girl: I couldn’t help but stare…
Boy: I asked her how she was…
Girl: I asked him about his new girlfriend…
Boy: I’d choose her over any girl…
Girl: He’s probably happy now…
Boy: I couldn’t look at her without thinking i would cry…
Girl: He couldn’t even look at me…
Boy: I told her I missed her…
Girl: He told me he missed me…
Boy: I meant it…
Girl: He didn’t mean it…
Boy: I love her…
Girl: He loves her…
Boy: I held her…
Girl: He gave me a friendly hug…
Boy: Then I went home and cried…
Girl: Then I went home and cried…
Boy: I lost her…
Girl: I lost him…
Boy: *Sigh*
Girl: *Sigh*

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. She was still groggy from surgery. Her husband, David, held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news.

That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency Cesarean to deliver couple’s new daughter, Dana Lu Blessing. At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor’s soft words dropped like bombs.

“I don’t think she’s going to make it,” he said, as kindly as he could. “There’s only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one.”

Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Dana would likely face if she survived. She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on.

“No! No!” was all Diana could say. She and David, with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away.

But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Dana’s underdeveloped nervous system was essentially ‘raw’, the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn’t even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love. All they could do, as Dana struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl.

There was never a moment when Dana suddenly grew stronger. But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there. At last, when Dana turned two months old, her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time.

And two months later, though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero, Dana went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted

Five years later, when Dana was a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She showed no signs whatsoever of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she was everything a little girl can be and more. But that happy ending is far from the end of her story.

One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Dana was sitting in her mother’s lap in the bleachers of a local ball park where her brother Dustin’s baseball team was practicing. As always, Dana was chattering nonstop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent . Hugging her arms across her chest, little Dana asked, “Do you smell that?”

Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, “Yes, it smells like rain.”

Dana closed her eyes and again asked, “Do you smell that?”

Once again, her mother replied, “Yes, I think we’re about to get wet. It smells like rain.”

Still caught in the moment, Dana shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, “No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest.”

Tears blurred Diana’s eyes as Dana happily hopped down to play with the other children. Before the rains came, her daughter’s words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along.

During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Dana on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.

“I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.”

There are moments
When I feel I just can’t go on
Wishing that you were here
Oh how I wish
You’re holding me close to you
Whispering those words I love you

But baby you’re not there
Like you were before
No words of love to hear
Can’t smile anymore
Is it finally over?
I can’t wait any longer
Do you ever think of me?
Coz baby can’t you see

That I’m hurting inside
All the tears I can’t hide
Life is never easy without you baby
I want you to know that I’m hurting inside
The pain is deep inside (I can’t mend it)
Wishing you would come to ease the pain, in my heart
Coz lovin’ you just hurts deep inside

Empty moments
They just fill every part of me
Since you’ve been away from me
Give me a chance to say how much I care
Hold me close to you and let me through

Click here to listen to this song…

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day he saw a small opening in the cocoon. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and could go no further… so, the man decided to help the butterfly.

He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But, it had a swollen body, and small shriveled wings. He continued to watch the butterfly, because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It was never able to fly.

What he had done in his well intentioned kindness and haste and what he did not understand, was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required to get through the tiny opening were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes, struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If nature allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as we could have been, and we could never fly.

Thank you so much…

• for coming into my life.
• for bringing out the best in me.
• for all the times you made me feel special.
• for all the sweet things you say and do for me.
• for sharing your love with me.
• for your time.
• for the smiles and the laughter.
• for being the person that you are.
• for being my best friend.
• for making me feel safe.
• for taking care of yourself.
• for taking care of me.
• for respecting me.
• for allowing me to be myself.
• for accepting me for who I am.
• for making me feel alive.
• for making me happy.
• for making me complete.
• for giving meaning to my life.
• for making me a part of your life.
• for teaching me how to love this much.
• for loving me the best way you know how.
• for allowing me to love you.
• for not letting go.
• for staying in my life.

I don’t know why I love you… I can’t explain it, all I know is that I love you completely with all my heart… I love you not because of what you’ve given me or what you’ve done for me… but because I just do.

Copyright©2008angel