'If' by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt youBut make allowance for their doubting too,If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,Or being hated, don't give way to hating,And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you've spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winningsAnd risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breath a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in youExcept the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;If all men count with you, but none too much,If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
--Rudyard Kipling

a stormy sea...

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The greatest of battles won and lost have all been simply dependent on whom they were fought with and who was with me when I did. Failures were the fruits of faithless fights fought alone whereas great victories have been won with He who is the Victor on my side. And most if not all of those battles have been with noneother than my very own self. Peculiar to say the least... that a person can be conflicted and varied in his own singularity. I mean, how can one who has but one mind and one soul and but one hert and one body ... have so many conflicting ideas? How can one live a life paradoxically almost... loving and hating at the same time, agreeing yet disagreeing at the same time, wanting and yet not wanting... It surely brings to remembrance the words of Paul in that I do what I don't want to do and what I ought to do I don't do... surely the heart and all it's contents is deceitful beyond comprehension... who can ever work out it's intents...
Thanks be to GOd, that I find myself in Him. That the more I know Him, the more I know myself... the more I love Him, the more I love myself... the clearer I see Him, the clearer I see everything else. Digging in the dark brings no end... for it's only in His light... that all things and all intents and all confusion and all conflicts are brought to light. He calms the storm. For am I not like the sea...many a time a stormy sea at that... tossing and turning.. with currrents that go against each other and winds that cross each others path... yet thanks be to Him who is "One" and Him who is "whole" and in Him who has no "paradoxes" ... for He calms the storm.

All cleaned up...

Ahhh... the satisfaction of a "house" in order. A "room" all cleaned up. Enough is enough of living with the "mess", though they be 'under the rug' and 'behind the curtains' and in places hardly noticeable or easy to overlook...enough is enough. Time to throw out the garbage, turn the tables over, wash the carpets, send the curtains for cleaning and clean every nook and cranny. No more excuses, no more tolerance, no more "just getting by".
And now that it's all done... with His leadership, companionship and ever-present help of course, great is the satisfaction... greater is the freedom, greater is the faith, greater still is the frienship with Him.

In the beginning...

This is dedicated to my one and only Lord and Saviour, Jesus. He has been and will always be the lover of my soul, the trustworthy shelter from the storm, the ever-forgiving and ever-faithful friend in whom I can find no fault in, the patient and all enduring Master, the gracious and merciful King... my brother, my friend, my Lord... there is and can be no other.