Heart Hope by Olga

How often do we say words without thinking of the way that they might affect someone else? How often have someone else's words affected us for good as well as to hurt us in some way? A decade or more I was speaking to a friend that I rarely see. She had been in a car accident and was struggling with the slow and sometimes painful healing process.  A simple statement was made, "God knit you together before you were born, so He can knit you together again."  I had long forgotten those words of encouragement that had been spoken, but my friend didn't. In fact she would need them even more when she struggled with her breast cancer. She said that simple truth had helped her get through the tough days and times.  Often times we think we have to speak a discourse to people, when all they might need are just a few short words spoken.  Lord may my words be ones of encouragement; may they be spoken with love; and may they be few in number, but...

At least four times in the last few months while sitting in my living room, I have heard a thud at the window. Each time, I discovered that a bird had crashed into the large picture window that looks into my backyard, and believe me it was not because the windows were so clean that they could not tell that they were flying into the glass pane. I’m not sure exactly why these crashes happen, but I do have a few guesses. The first one is that they just get distracted either by another bird or by the freedom that they feel gliding through the air. That sometimes happens to me in life; I lose my focus and while distracted I get myself into a situation that might be harmful or even dangerous. Another possibility for the flying mishaps could be that the reflection in the glass makes it look like there are blue skies and clouds out in front of them, but it is actually a mirage. This can happen in life too when we don’t check out things carefully we can be fooled into a false manner of thinking...