When climbing a mountain, you get further away from earth and closer to yourself.
Fear of change is like standing under a hot shower and knowing the moment you’ll turn it off you’ll be freezing cold.
Erik Tanghe Quotes
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Tag Archives: challenges
Life’s Responses (Haiku Series #154)
Learning
Gathering new strength
Recalling past challenges—
Tomorrow waiting
Overcoming
Difficult moments
Face-to-face conversation—
Needing loyal friends
Abandoning
Each tribe walks its path
Ignoring one another—
Everyone lost
Numbing Journey
Breathing in silence
Poverty living
Suffocating life
Empty, ungiving
Living with little
Sadly, no escape
Seeing no future
Desolate landscape
Bonding together
Despite life’s darkness
Overcoming much
Home lives with starkness
Searching, any job
Family needs food
Tasting emptiness
Life feeling so skewed
Thinking of future
Numbing journey calls
Shattering each dream
Poverty’s pitfalls
Facing each crisis
Today’s worries leave
Finding work again
Hope now smiles, believe
Different levels of poverty strike the world everywhere. Some areas face more daunting challenges than others. Here are a few sobering statistics:
- Ten percent the world lives in extreme poverty.
- For every 1,000 children born, 39 will die before reaching five years of age.
- Over 60 million children, ages 6-11, are not attending school.
- Seventy-five percent of extreme poverty is found in Africa and Asia.
- About one third of the world’s least developed countries are the least churched in the world.
Life’s Paradox
Life consumes ups and downs
Warm smiles give way to frowns
One moment pours with joy
Another will annoy
Mountaintop songs swell hearts
Dark valleys tear apart
Tonight’s thunderstorms boom
Tomorrow catches gloom
Miles bridge life’s paradox
Some shine, others break glass
Life’s cycle never halts
Dancing to steady waltz
Time takes different road
Living by rhythmic code
Expectations grin back
Days no longer look black
Morning rain shares rainbow
Outlook blossoms and glows
Love filling empty hearts
Today brings fresh restart
Hourglass never drains out
Happiness transforms drought
Life consumes ups and downs
Now sowing fertile grounds
Charles Stanley Quote
Through our trials, God works powerfully within us to do more than we can perceive or imagine.
From Ephesians 3:20-21: “Now to Him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
Monday Memories: Moving Forward
Facing disappointment for many months and more
Feeling frustration and despair starting to soar
Realizing that this journey needs a mid-course correction
Pointing an unsteady compass in a totally new direction
Tiring from how many others have treated thee in the past
Looking forward to a future that brings happiness at last
Beating up thyself for any past, painful mistakes
Needing renewed courage for a new life to make
Knowing that this life needs a helping hand
Wanting to scan for a nurturing place to land
Reaching out comes the helping hand of thy God
Sending forth His grace to be thy staff and rod
Shielding eyes from brightest sun at a new dawn
Walking forward with energy that’s never gone
Republishing this poem from February, 2019, brings out a theme many of us have experienced in our past. Take a moment today and look back at your life’s progress going forward from past challenges.
Day Ahead (Haiku Series #141)
Mindset
Ever shifting sands
Challenge life’s steady journey—
Changing paradigms
Aim
New day, new focus
Meeting today’s challenges—
Feeling satisfied
Intrigue
Mystery waiting
Hidden in darkest corner—
Flashlight discovers
Charles Bukowski Quotes
What matters most is how well you walk through fire.
If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start.
Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) is a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His prolific writing produced over 45 books of poetry and prose, and much of his writing spoke to the despairing urban conditions of the downtrodden.
George Herbert Quotes
Every path hath a puddle.
The shortest answer is doing.
River of Life
From Psalm 92:12-15: “The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. In old age they still produce fruit; they are always green and full of sap, showing that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”
River of life, unceasing in its travels
Mysteries of life, shall ever unravel
From heavenly source, cascades living water
Shaping clay, molded by Creation’s potter
When ultimate challenges travel too high
Overcoming all odds, courage one’s ally
Life’s purpose, taking self far from safety’s home
Discovering meaning, hidden catacombs
Fate knocking, invisible hand clearly seen
Traveling waters, transparent with routine
Years continue to advance, filled with Lord’s grace
Breathing enduring joy, from life’s timeless chase
Life’s sunset glimmers, over cloudless skyline
Looking back, years richer than any gold mine
Mysteries of life, eternally fulfilled
River of life, journey which only God builds
From the words of American pastor and Christian teacher, Charles Stanley: “Our bodies may age, but we get old only if we choose to do so–attitude is what makes the difference.”
Big Sky Buckeye 