A WONDERFUL FUTURE

"I see a wonderful future in a very uncertain world. If we will cling to our values, if we will build on our inheritance, if we will walk in obedience before the Lord, if we will simply live the gospel, we will be blessed in a magnificent and wonderful way. We will be looked upon as a peculiar people who have found the key to a peculiar happiness. And many people shall go and say, 'Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord....for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:3). Great has been our past, wonderful is our present, glorious can be our future."

- President Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, November 1997, p 69

TOGETHER

Perhaps we can be together there,
In that next place
Where bodies are so pure
They pass through planets -

Perhaps there,
Where the light that lighteth the sun
Is kept on all night every night,
And no one watches for morning
Holding the cold off with a candle -

There, perhaps,
Where pain is exchanged
For peace and a memory -

You and I can touch as we pass
And gather in the good of one another.
We can love and give
In whatever loving, giving ways
There finally are.

We still will wish
To be together then, I think.
Perhaps then we shall know how.
Perhaps, even, we shall know why
We cannot be together now.

-  Carol Lynn Pearson

MARY, DID YOU KNOW?

Mary, did you know that your baby boy will someday walk on water?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you.

Mary, did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with His hand?
Did you know that your baby boy walked where angels trod?
And when you kissed your little baby, you have kissed the face of God.

Mary, did you know, the blind will see, the deaf will hear,
The dead will live again,
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak
The praises of the Lamb.

Mary, did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you're holding is the great I Am.

- Mark Lowry

TO A CHILD GONE

I thought I was ahead of you in line.
You would take your turn
After I took mine.
Like we did before.

I guess you don't need new shoes
For starting heaven.
Or a light left on against the dark
The way I always did.
But I'm so used to parenting,
I wanted just to be there -
To do whatever needed to be done.

But you went first.
And now, my little one,
Suddenly you are my senior.
Morning, I know, will come.
But, bring close your light -
This time it is I who fear the night.

- Carol Lynn Pearson

WITHIN US

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us".

-  Ralph Waldo Emerson

FULNESS

"He wept - He who had descended below all things, the Man of Sorrows, He who bore all our griefs. The height of His infinite capacity for joy is the inverse, mirror image of the depth of His capacity to bear our burdens. So it is with the enlarged caverns of feeling within our own hearts; as the sorrows of our lives carve and stretch those caverns, they expand our soul's capacity for joy. Then, when the Man of Sorrows turns our bitter tastes to sweet, our joy - and His - will fill the widened chambers of our hearts with what the scriptures call 'fulness'. That is when we have accepted His Atonement and love with such completeness that His purpose for us is fully satisfied. Then will we know that we were made for this. Then will we know where, and why, and to whom, we belong.
'For He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.' (Psalms 107:9)'"

- Bruce C. Hafen, "The Belonging Heart", p 315)

ALWAYS THERE

IF I could catch a rainbow
I would do it just for you
And share with you its beauty
On the days you're feeling blue.

If I could build a mountain
You could call your very own
A place to find serenity
A place to be alone.

If I could take your troubles
I would toss them in the sea
But all these things I'm finding
Are impossible for me.

I cannot build a mountain
Or catch a rainbow fair
But let me be what I know best
A friend that's always there.

- Author unknown