In a Christian community, everything depends upon whether each individual is an
indispensable link in a chain. Only when even the smallest link is securely
interlocked is the chain unbreakable. A community which allows unemployed
members to exist within it will perish because of them. It will be well,
therefore, if every member receives a definite task to perform for the
community, that he may know in hours of doubt that he, too, is not useless and
unusable. Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need
the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The
elimination of the weak is the death of the fellowship. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Forgive us if this day we have done or said anything to increase the pain of the
world. Pardon the unkind word, the impatient gesture, the hard and selfish deed,
the failure to show sympathy and kindly help where we had the opportunity, but
missed it; and enable us so to live that we may daily do something to lessen the
tide of human sorrow, and add to the sum of human happiness. - F. B. Meyer
I need Thee, O Lord, for a curb on my tongue; when I am tempted to making
carping criticisms and cruel judgments, keep me from speaking barbed words that
hurt, and in which I find perverted satisfaction. Keep me from unkind words and
from unkind silences. Restrain my judgments. Make my criticisms kind, generous,
and constructive. Make me sweet inside, that I may be gentle with other people,
gentle in the things I say, kind in what I do. Create in me that warmth of mercy
that shall enable others to find Thy strength for their weakness, Thy peace for
their strife, Thy joy for their sorrow, Thy love for their hatred, Thy
compassion for their weakness. In thine own strong name, I pray. Amen. - Peter
Marshall
I vividly remember how I had, at one time, become totally dependent on the
affection and friendship of one person. This dependency threw me into a pit of
great anguish and brought me to the verge of a very self-destructive depression.
But from the moment I was helped to experience my interpersonal addiction as an
expression of a need for total surrender to a living God who would fulfill the
deepest desires of my heart, I started to live my dependency in a radically new
way. Instead of living it in shame and embarrassment, I was able to live it as
an urgent invitation to claim God's unconditional love for myself, a love I can
depend on without any fear. - Henri J. M. Nouwen
In a Christian community, everything depends upon whether each individual is an
indispensable link in a chain. Only when even the smallest link is securely
interlocked is the chain unbreakable. A community which allows unemployed
members to exist within it will perish because of them. It will be well,
therefore, if every member receives a definite task to perform for the
community, that he may know in hours of doubt that he, too, is not useless and
unusable. Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need
the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The
elimination of the weak is the death of the fellowship. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Forgive us if this day we have done or said anything to increase the pain of the
world. Pardon the unkind word, the impatient gesture, the hard and selfish deed,
the failure to show sympathy and kindly help where we had the opportunity, but
missed it; and enable us so to live that we may daily do something to lessen the
tide of human sorrow, and add to the sum of human happiness. - F. B. Meyer
I need Thee, O Lord, for a curb on my tongue; when I am tempted to making
carping criticisms and cruel judgments, keep me from speaking barbed words that
hurt, and in which I find perverted satisfaction. Keep me from unkind words and
from unkind silences. Restrain my judgments. Make my criticisms kind, generous,
and constructive. Make me sweet inside, that I may be gentle with other people,
gentle in the things I say, kind in what I do. Create in me that warmth of mercy
that shall enable others to find Thy strength for their weakness, Thy peace for
their strife, Thy joy for their sorrow, Thy love for their hatred, Thy
compassion for their weakness. In thine own strong name, I pray. Amen. - Peter
Marshall
I vividly remember how I had, at one time, become totally dependent on the
affection and friendship of one person. This dependency threw me into a pit of
great anguish and brought me to the verge of a very self-destructive depression.
But from the moment I was helped to experience my interpersonal addiction as an
expression of a need for total surrender to a living God who would fulfill the
deepest desires of my heart, I started to live my dependency in a radically new
way. Instead of living it in shame and embarrassment, I was able to live it as
an urgent invitation to claim God's unconditional love for myself, a love I can
depend on without any fear. - Henri J. M. Nouwen