God's Love Letter for You

My Child,

You may not know me, but I know everything about you.... Psalm 139:1
I know when you sit down and when you rise up... Psalm 139:2
I am familiar with all your ways...Psalm139:3
Even the very hairs on your head are numbered...Matthew 10:29-31
For you were made in my image...Geneses 1:27
In me you live and move and have your being...Acts 17:28
For you are my offspring...Acts 17:28
I knew you even before you were conceived...Jeremiah 1:4-5
I choose you when I planned creation...Ephesians 1:11-12
You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book...Psalm 139:15-16
I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live…Acts 17:26
You are fearfully and wonderfully made…Psalm 139:14
I knit you together in your mother’s womb…Psalm 139:13
And brought you forth on the day you were born…Psalm 71:6
I have been misrepresented by those who don’t know me…John 8:41-44
I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love…1 John 4:16
And it is my desire to lavish my love on you…1 John 3:1
Simply because you are my child and I am your father…1 John 3:1
I offer you more than your earthly father ever could…Matthew 7:11
For I am the perfect father…Matthew 5:48
Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand…James 1:17
For I am your provider and I meet all your needs…Matthew 6:31-33
My plan for your future has always been filled with hope…Jeremiah 29:11
Because I love you with an everlasting love…Jeremiah 31:3
My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore…Psalms 139:17-18
And I rejoice over you with singing…Zephaniah 3:17
I will never stop doing good to you…Jeremiah 32:40
For you are my treasured possession…Exodus 19:5
I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul…Jeremiah 32:41
And I want to show you great and marvelous things…Jeremiah 33:3
If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me…Deuteronomy 4:29
Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart…Psalm 47:4
For it is I who give you those desires…Philippians 2:13
I am able to do more for you than you could possibly imagine…Ephesians 3:20
For I am your greatest encourager…2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
I am also the father who comforts you in all your troubles…2 Corinthians 1:3-4
When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you…Psalm 34:18
As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart…Isaiah 40:11
One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes…Revelation 21:3-4
And I’ll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth…Revelation 21:3-4
I am your father and I love you even as I love my son, Jesus…John 17:23
For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed…John 17:26
He is the exact representation of my being…Hebrews 1:3
He came to demonstrate that I am for you, not against you…Romans 8:31
And to tell you that I am not counting your sins…2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled…2 Corinthians 5:18-19
His death was the ultimate expression of my love for you…1 John 4:10
I gave up everything I loved that I might gain your love…Romans 8:31-32
If you receive the gift of my son Jesus, you receive me…1 John 2:23
And nothing will ever separate you from my love again…Romans 8:38-39
Come home and I’ll throw the biggest party heaven has ever seen…Luke 15:7
I have always been Father, and will always be Father…Ephesians 3:14-15
My question is…Will you be my child?...John 1:12-13
I am waiting for you…Luke 15:11-32

Love, Your Dad.

ALMIGHTY GOD

HOW TO LIVE A SIMPLE LIFE, ACCORDING TO WARREN BUFFET

THERE was a one-hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity.

Here are some very interesting aspects of his life:

He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late!
He bought small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.
He still lives in the same small three-bedroom house in the mid-town Omaha, that he bought after he got married 50 years ago.
He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence. He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him.
He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world’s largest private jet company.
His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies.He writes only one letter each year to the CEO’s of these companies, giving them goals for the year.
He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis.

He has given his CEO’s only two rules.

RULE #1: Do not lose any of your share holder’s money.
RULE #2: Do not forget rule # 1.

He does not socialize with the high society crowd.

His past time after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch television. Bill Gates, the world’s richest man met him for the first time only five years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet.Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.

His advice to young people:
“Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself and remember:
Money doesn’t create man but it is the man who created money;
live your life as simple as you can;
don’t do what others say, just listen to them, but do what you feel is good;
don’t go by brand name; just wear those things in which you feel comfortable;
don’t waste your money on unnecessary things; rather spend them on who really is in need;after all it’s your life. Why give chance to others to rule your life?

HOW TO LIVE A SIMPLE LIFE ,

The Healing Power of Forgiveness

by: Nicole Lopena

There's a reason why saints have that beatific glow:
Being able to empathise and forgive may heal the heart and mind. Holding on to hurts and nursing grudges wears you down physically and emotionally. Forgive for Good. Forgiving someone can be a powerful antidote. Forgiving isn't condoning what happend, it's about breaking free of the person who wrongged us. Forgiveness, it seems, is still Divine.

SMS from Heaven

i choose to love you in the silence
for in the silence i find no rejection
i choose to imprison you in my thoughts
for in my thoughts i can set you free
i choose to love you in your loneliness
for in your loneliness no one owns you
...but ME!


-Jesus Christ-

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Robby's Night

At the prodding of my friends, I am writing this story. My name is Mildred Hondorf. I am a former elementary school music teacher from Des Moines , Iowa . I've always supplemented my income by teaching piano lessons-something I've done for over 30 years. Over the years I found that children have many levels of musical ability. I've never had the pleasure of having a prodigy though I have taught some talented students.

However I've also had my share of what I call "musically challenged" pupils. One such student was Robby. Robby was 11 years old when his mother (a single Mom) dropped him off for his first piano lesson. I prefer that students (especially boys!) begin at an earlier age, which I explained to Robby.

But Robby said that it had always been his mother's dream to hear him play the piano. So I took him as a student. Well, Robby began with his piano lessons and from the beginning I thought it was a hopeless endeavor. As much as Robby tried, he lacked the sense of tone and basic rhythm needed to excel But he dutifully reviewed his scales and some elementary pieces that I require all my students to learn.

Over the months he tried and tried while I listened and cringed and tried to encourage him. At the end of each weekly lesson he'd always say, "My mom's going to hear me play someday." But it seemed hopeless. He just did not have any inborn ability. I only knew his mother from a distance as she dropped Robby off or waited in her aged car to pick him up. She always waved and smiled but never stopped in.

Then one day Robby stopped coming to our lessons.
I thought about calling him but assumed because of his lack of ability, that he had decided to pursue something else. I also was glad that he stopped coming. He was a bad advertisement for my teaching!

Several weeks later I mailed to the student's homes a flyer on the upcoming recital. To my surprise Robby (who received a flyer) asked me if he could be in the recital. I told him that the recital was for current pupils and because he had dropped out he really did not qualify. He said that his mother had been sick and unable to take him to piano lessons but he was still practicing "Miss Hondorf I've just got to play!" he insisted.

I don't know what led me to allow him to play in the recital. Maybe it was his persistence or maybe it was something inside of me saying that it would be all right. The night for the recital came. The high school gymnasium was packed with parents, friends and relatives. I put Robby up last in the program before I was to come up and thank all the students and play a finishing piece. I thought that any damage he would do would come at the end of the program and I could always salvage his poor performance through my "curtain closer."

Well, the recital went off without a hitch. The students had been practicing and it showed. Then Robby came up on stage. His clothes were wrinkled and his hair looked like he'd run an eggbeater through it. "Why didn't he dress up like the other students?" I thought. "Why didn't his mother at least make him comb his hair for this special night?"

Robby pulled out the piano bench and he began. I was surprised when he announced that he had chosen Mozart's Concerto #21 in C Major. I was not prepared for what I heard next. His fingers were light on the keys, they even danced nimbly on the ivories. He went from pianissimo to fortissimo. From allegro to virtuoso. His suspended chords that Mozart demands were magnificent! Never had I heard Mozart played so well by people his age. After six and a half minutes he ended in a grand crescendo and everyone was on their feet in wild applause.

Overcome and in tears I ran up on stage and put my arms around Robby in joy. "I've never heard you play like that Robby! How'd you do it? " Through the microphone Robby explained: "Well Miss Hondorf . Remember I told you my Mom was sick? Well, actually she had cancer and passed away this morning And well . . . She was born deaf so tonight was the first time she ever heard me play. I wanted to make it special."

There wasn't a dry eye in the house that evening. As the people from Social Services led Robby from the stage to be placed into foster care, noticed that even their eyes were red and puffy and I thought to myself how much richer my life had been for taking Robby as my pupil.

No, I've never had a prodigy but that night I became a prodigy. . . Of Robby's. He was the teacher and I was the pupil for it is he that taught me the meaning of perseverance and love and believing in yourself and maybe even taking a chance in someone a nd you don't know why.

Robby was killed in the senseless bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April of 1995. And now, a footnote to the story.

*********

If God didn't have a purpose for us.
We wouldn't be here!