I Don't Want To Know

James 1:2 (NIV) “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” 

I Don’t Want To Know

Something came up in conversation the other day with my husband. I was taking my supplements and pointed out that many were for inflammation. He responded with, “Did you ever think that’s not what it is?” Referring to my immense amount of daily pain. "Absolutely," I responded. I don't think of it often, but it certainly crosses my mind on occasion. Maybe it isn't inflammation, maybe it's worse. Yeah, I won't go the doubt route.

I feel negative comments surfacing on a regular basis now. I feel like others are doubting and it's not helping my journey any. I snapped back at my husband and told him that No, I don't wanna know if it is something else. I don't want to go to the doctors for them to hound me and tell me I should get chemo. I don't want to know if it has spread and I only have six months to live. I am persevering and doing everything I can to prevent death but then when you think about it, no one can prevent death, we're all going to die.

Memorial Day was no different with the poor poor pitiful Joni, looks. I didn't want to go to his mother's, but I did want to see the family. She wasn't having a cookout or anything, just a yearly gathering of his aunt and two uncles that we only get to see one or two times a year because two live out of state and one hours away. I didn't want to go because well, I'm in constant pain and it's a challenge to get out the door, down the steps, into the truck, back out of the truck, ascend more stairs and do it all over again when the visit is over.

I was also concerned with the questions that would be aimed at me. Luckily his brother was there with his wife and son so it kind of took the questions away from me. Instead, I was met with eyes of pity. They looked at me like the cripple I am and treated me like a fragile broken child who needs assistance with every step. I wonder how they think I manage to get through every single day? I don't have a live-in nurse that cares for me, I DO take care of myself. I AM a little slow but I'm not a precious vase about to fall on the floor that needs catching before it smashes to the ground.  

Then there was the lightning storm going on for two hours and more. The gusty winds arose right before we left as did a little thunder and lightning and I wanted to wait but no, hubby had to leave then and there. The dirt road was a sloppy mess as we swerved and swayed until it came to an end. Every swerve of the car sent a tingling pain up my back. The short trip to his mother's had the pain rising and rising with each clap of thunder and every sliver of lightning. We arrived in a downpour. I said I'd wait in the car, but I got so frustrated with myself, I hopped out and limped, cane in hand, to the front door. Hubby on arm trying to walk in his normal stride and me trying to keep up with my tiny limps, in the pouring rain and gusting winds. 

I try and understand that his family never sees me, and hasn't seen me using a cane and just expected bouncy-bouncy Joni, but instead, they were met with Tiny Tim. After his brother left, his aunt was right on me asking how I was doing and if I was still doing my protocol. I tried not to be snarky but it was quite hard as my back felt like a tightly wound rubber band about to snap and I really was not up to a visit that day. I just said yes, yes, I wake every day and thank God for another day. I was curt but not snarky. 

When I went to get up to use the bathroom his mother was about to leap into action, "You need help?" Umm... no, but thank you. As I walked past her my husband was sitting there and I asked for some water and his mom quickly jumped up and said I can get it, I can get it. I love having people care, I love that they want to know more about how I'm handling my illness. I love that they don't even talk chemo with me, but a tightly threaded quilt will eventually dry rot. Remember, I'm here year round. Not that anybody ever asks about my writing but is as important to me as my husband's now-defunct blog he had while he was blind. Writing is my life and I live to tell my story. 

On the ride home from his moms the storms were still churning; hard to see, muddy roads a bigger mess but we made it home and my tears fell unseen as quickly as the raindrops. It was a trying day for me that no one understands. As stubborn as I am, I am not one to be pitied and the looks, the stares, they tore me apart shred by shred. While I know and understand how lucky I am to be in this family and to have people that care, you don't realize how much it hurts to know I have a family back home that couldn't give a rip about me. I never cross their mind in a day, month or a year. It makes me feel defensive and isolated when a person after months of not seeing me shows signs of caring. I go on.

Tuesday, the entire day was rainfall! Glorious rainfall with rolling thunder and a flash of lightning here and there but rain it did! I think we had ten storms in one day and they didn't stop until eleven at night. The temps dropped to normal on Monday, meaning Springlike temps of the 60's and yesterday the temps that were predicted near ninety barely made it to seventy. Alleluia Amen.

Like summertime storms, life comes at us unexpectedly. Sometimes the trials are easy to endure, at other times they're difficult. Sometimes it's a delicate rainfall, at times a hard downpour. Sometimes high winds, a few times tornadoes pop up. Surely you need to be ready but if you knew ahead of time that you were going to die, what would you do differently? If a doctor told you that you have six months to live, how would you spend those last six months? Me, I don't want to know. I want to live until I die and that's that. Sure I'll prepare myself for the storms about to strike but I will not sit here and count days and think each one my last. As long as God is my guide, I never fear the valleys. Don't pity me as I persevere! I go with God!

James 1:12 (NIV) “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.” 

Always A Challenge

Ecc. 9:11 “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

Always a Challenge

It’s not easy

It’s really hard waking up every single day in a peppy mood. I wake and am so grateful to be awake one more day but let me tell you, every day is a daunting challenge to merely stay alive. While my mind is focused on the positive the dark and evil of the world try too often to slither into my thoughts and screen.

While most wake, go on in a mundane fashion as if their whole life is in front of them because honestly none of us really know when the time will come, I wake to the challenging days before me. Life for me has changed so much in five months, I used to take for granted eating a slice of pizza, or eating something from Subway or placing food on my plate that, while unhealthy as all get out, was delicious. 

Each morning I look at the sunrise differently as if this was my very first dazzling one, the sunset as if it was my very last purple-glazed one, I fall asleep praying that all will be right with the off-kilter world. I wake to a new unblemished day and face challenges, minute after minute, hour after hour. Everyone else seems to be going about life in a ho-hum matter-of-factly manner.

I watch as people shuffle about, children laugh and play, parents doing what parents do and that’s loving on their children. People are hurriedly rushing from point A to get to point B. I feel as if I’m sitting high on the balcony overlooking a flurry of activity and me, just an observer biding my time.

I didn’t want life to change for my husband either but such as it is, it has. I try to continue to make home cooked meals but that in itself is a challenge for me. I stir the delectable sauce or check to see if the noodles I can’t eat are done and place a meal on the plate that I can’t partake of. No, I now make two different meals one for me and one for him. Yes, he says he is more than capable of making his own meals, and I get that. My duty as his other half for fourteen years is now shifted, like a planet off its axis, so I try to keep it as normal as possible and do what I can.

I do believe change is good in so many ways. Maybe that is what God had in store, to wake us (my husband and me) up so we could appreciate the smell of the fragrant roses or enjoy the simple fluttering butterfly more; to bow down to His gloriousness as many just pass the wonder of it all by without a second thought.

I thought I was the most appreciative person alive but now I’m even more appreciative if you can imagine that. But please take note; every single second of the day is wrought with a challenge. With three illnesses upon me, I’m not just facing one mind-bending dastardly disease; I have to be blasted with three, tiring, pain-filled, hurdles to coast over every single livelong day.

I’m not whining I would just like you to think twice before finding my journey somewhat lighthearted. I’m doing so much better than I was five months ago, feeling great and not knocking the hurdles over, nope, I’m soaring but it is not without its grunts and groans. To be honest, I feel as if I’m climbing Mount Everest in blizzard conditions, being tossed about by the winds; or crossing the Sahara Desert in a windstorm where the sand on my face feels like shards of glass being slung at me. 

If I disappear for a day or two, it is more than likely because I’m tired and beat. If I don’t write for a day or two, it is more than likely the Sahara has dried me up, words and all. If I seem distant, you’re not to blame, I am being challenged and am out here trying to do the best I can to overcome everything thrown my way. As humbling as this is, I have to bow down and admit first and foremost…it is always a challenge.

God bless each and every one of you! 

Heb. 12:1 “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,”

Hope In The Hopeless

2 Cor. 1:3-4 (ESV) “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

Hope in the Hopeless

Shocked, saddened or heartbroken, that is the reaction you get when you tell people your diagnosis. The Big C has always carried with it the equality of a death sentence. They don’t see the hope of Christ living in us and working through us, they see disaster, dread, empathy, basically, they see death in us.

I’ve learned in my life that Jesus overcame death and it is not something to be feared. If we feared death with every downfall we have in our life, every affliction, every illness, and disease, we would see it as a disaster about to happen. Opportunity knocks in the strangest of situations. Some people are used to show you the Glory of God in an affliction as we show you the Light of Christ shining through us.

There IS hope in the hopeless; you just need to be willing to see past your own hardened observations. Empathizing is a lot different than sympathizing.  Empathizing is almost like feeling sorry for a person going through a difficult stage in their life where sympathizing is feeling equal in understanding what the person is going through. 

Definition of:
Empathy – the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

Sympathy -- harmony of or agreement in feeling, as between persons or on the part of one person with respect to another.

When my Dad, Aunt, and Uncle were all battling this same disease, I felt sorry for them because I couldn’t do anything so I felt helpless and I didn’t understand what they were going through because I had never been through the same thing. As individual and unique as this disease is, we all handle the diagnosis and treatment differently. 

Many are conditioned to see a death sentence. Many see no hope in the hopeless, many also would rather turn their heads to ignore the situation than bringing HOPE to the hopelessness people feel.

I’ll admit, after hearing the initial diagnosis, it crumbled me like a cookie. I saw my life slowly flash before my eyes and I saw an imminent death sentence awaiting me. The oncologists fed me their lies and I believed them, even after I had accepted this illness, they continued to shovel in the fear and hopelessness. I would enter the office full of hope, I would leave wondering where the broom was to sweep up the mess I’d leave behind. 

I would regain the hope I walked in with not long after leaving the office and I promised myself I wouldn’t put myself through that series of negative mud-slinging ever again. I would build on my strength with the Lord and I would walk a path few are brave enough to face. Even if it is not considered bravery, there needs to be an inner strength and willingness to walk the path that might look dim to others but to you is a path of Light.

I see hope in the hopeless. Just like the rain filled days, I always saw the sun shining through. The stationary bike is a perfect example. I could see the days on end of rain as taking my newly formed walking routine away from me but instead, I saw the bike in the basement as a ray of light! And this week, I learned from hubby’s mom, who gave us the bike, that it had a story behind it.

Just a reminder, things always walk through my door free of charge or of minimal price when I need them the most, the bike rode in when my husband was suffering from blindness. The bike sat in his mother’s basement doing nothing and she didn’t want to get rid of it, but when her son needed something to keep his idle body busy, she offered the bike to us.

Many years ago, his mother had found out that someone had entered her name in a raffle. She is not one to sign up for raffles for her own reasons but this person signed her up and guess what she won? The bike! It’s a nice stationary bike, a Schwinn to be exact, with an arm exerciser as you peddle too! She took it not knowing what to do with it so it sat in her basement, years on end until her son went blind and she offered it to him. Little did she know that it would be a blessing to me also. We moved to Nebraska eight years ago BECAUSE of his blindness and had we remained in Texas, no bike, no story. His sight was restored in another miraculous moment that I wrote about, years ago.

God works in mysterious ways of bringing HOPE to the hopeless! I frequently see meme after meme telling me not to donate to the Goodwill because they are making millions off of us people. I have to disagree, I have never gone into a Goodwill where a Cadillac was parked outside and the manager was wearing an expensive Armani suit. No, I see people of my class or lower, working the register, working the backroom unloading donations, I see people WORKING and not for millions of dollars either. That is the only place where I can go and AFFORD nice jeans and clothes and I’m not ashamed to admit it either! I donate clothes to them and I buy clothes from them. 

Hope in the hopeless, from a 2011 post of mine: “Ok, Shady Brooks is a place in my mind where water ripples downstream, I create the illusion of the rainbow permanently above my head inspiring me to move forward in life, sitting on the edge of the water with my notebook in hand. No laughter, just the rushing water, wind-chimes off in the distance and me sitting there, alone, waiting for sanity to brush my face and as they slowly appear, I realize, they are all new people, that have entered my life and are lifting me to the heights that I need to be.”

It isn’t just me bringing hope to the hopeless; it is my friends bringing hope to me, too. They are surrounding me with support and without them, I don’t feel this path would be as easy going as the past four months (fourteen years of friendship for that matter) have been. Sure I have my down days but there is HOPE waiting for me at the beginning and end of every single day! I make the most of a day and I find a peace in my affliction and will continue to share my HOPE and Light with you!

God Bless You, one and ALL! 

Pss. 111:1 “Praise ye the LORD. I will praise the LORD with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation.”

There is no one like our God!

God of this City

Reflecting

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sad tree

Isa. 40:31 "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

A Reflecting Post

I’m writing this on Monday, September 7th a day before the election that will change the world. I could already feel the rise in change at the beginning of the year and my fellow man didn’t let me down. They began the year consumed in hate and carried the angst all the way through to November and surely through December with the outcome no one will like.

I saw hypocrites crawl out of the woodwork like termites in dry-rotted wood all taking their place in the march to destroy whatever pleasantries one has known in America. I’ve been writing my heart out this year taking my stance with Christ and my love for Him, never to be swayed by the vermin of society who has taken a stance in the mire. 

Sadly, I can count on one hand the people who stayed true to their beliefs and didn’t succumb to the rallying cries of animosity. It is as if believers were on a collective conscious stream where we gathered together knowing the destruction had unfolded and they/WE were not going to be a part of it, they would fight against the flow and stand firmly with their faith!

I will add to this writing on November 9th when the shock of what the humans have done sinks in. Are they going to all stand proud? Are they going to rally together and continue with their bashing and displeasure? Are they going to boast of their love of God while raging at their brother?

My brothers and sisters in Christ, thank you for showing me that you CAN be stronger in Christ by not allowing the antagonism to wash over you and carry you into the swamp of a broken democracy, a shattered people. I am proud to call you friend as I’ve watched this entire year, as you stood separate from the indignation and finger pointers who added to the demise of our country.

My brothers and sisters, you stood tall in the face of a challenge. You brought God to the world and were messengers of the Word and never let the hate filter in. You never strayed. Yes, we may all be sinners, but God NEEDED us to be strong for HIM, and so many in the world have let Him down but you, you stood firm FOR Him. For that very reason, I know you are truly blessed and will continue to be the Light the world needs to see in this time of darkness.

Words from my dear friend, Bob Hembree, the day before Election Day 2016:

“Most of us agree social media has contributed to the ugly current of distrust toward our social institutions, the foundations of American stability. This includes legitimate news organizations, the sciences and all three branches of the government. We pick our news sources based on our prejudices, blurring the lines between fact and fiction. Lies have more weight than truth if they agree with our politics. We create enemies on impulse, decide who is a criminal, then create the crimes. When legitimate news reporting disproves these charges, they too become the criminals, the accomplice’s, the co-conspirators. When the truth no longer matters, what's left but chaos? It doesn’t matter who wins the presidency tomorrow. The damage is done. My vote is not for the individual, but for the party best able to handle damage control. We need all the sanity and empathy we can get.”

I’ve been around for quite a few elections in my life but never have I feared one the way I do this one. Will we wake and act as if this year filled with angst, destruction, and chaos never happened? I don’t think so, I think they’ll wake with the same resentment that they carried all year. Will they accept change, male or female there IS going to be change. This sentence stuck with me from Bob, “Lies have more weight than truth if they agree with our politics.”

I now wait to see what the morning after brings. 

11 9 2016 ~ Reality sets in

the morning after

I’ll have to admit first that I did not stay up and wait and see what the people had done but I rose this morning turned on my computer to see Hillary’s smiling face in the headline. Oh, it was just a split screen picture; Donald Trump was squished to the left of the box that announced we now have a reality TV star for President of the United States.

The headlines down the google page read like this:

2016 Election: Donald Trump Wins the White House in Upset NBC - News.com
Featured: Donald Trump's Stunning Upset -The Atlantic
Trending: Donald Trump wins the presidency in stunning upset over Clinton - Washington Post
Live Updating: Election Night live blog: Trump's historic upset and the last cliffhangers --The Mercury News
Republicans keep control of Congress - CNN
Allies scramble after 'huge shock' of Trump victory – Politico
Trump victory sparks angry protests across California: 'Not my president' -Los Angeles Times

And don’t even get me started on the facebook wall.

The reality of all of this is that we are not United States, we are bullies and get what we want by bullying, misleading, lies, dishonesty. The Missouri pick three (obviously fixed and nothing random about it) 666? I question everything in my world.

What was once a world power has now become the laughing stock of the world! You did it people, aren’t you happy? You kicked, you screamed, you whined, you pushed, you shoved, you lied and threw a tantrum and now you’ve gotten your way. Does it feel good? I wouldn’t know because what I feel in the pit of my stomach is not a fluffy feel good churning. 

I woke to find a different world surrounding me. I see people are in shock for what they made into a reality. I feel tremors under my feet as the earth is quaking in fear. As we reflect on the year that could’ve been, make note of the year that was because the spinning of the globe has only just begun to collapse. Hold on tight to your loved ones, ignore the reality, as many people think I do, and realize this is the new world of Reality Television and we the people are the stars. 

I Stand with Christ!

John 11:35 "Jesus wept."

Peeve Of The Day ~ "Just Get Over It."

1 Pet. 4:12-13 “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”

My peeve of the day? People minimizing pain.

“Just get over it.” 

“Suck it up, buttercup, life goes on.”

Yup, those words right there grate on my nerves like screeching nails on a chalkboard. Telling someone to just get over their pain, depression, or anxiety, whatever burden they bear or cross they carry is minimizing what they are going through on a daily basis. 

If you’ve been through the depths of hell and have come back to tell the world about your experience that’s just great, you’re the one human God has chosen to break the gates of hell but if you’ve suffered in similar pain as someone else, don’t minimize what they endure daily by telling them to just get over it because YOU survived a similar pain.

You don’t know the pain someone is going through unless you’ve walked in his or her shoes and I’m pretty sure no one has walked [metaphorically] in another person’s shoes. No, we are on our own path in life and while you may have comparable pain, similar circumstance, identical health issues, you need to know that the person enduring the affliction owns what is happening to them, it can’t be borrowed or stolen it has to be LIVED.

Offering sympathy is one thing but comparing your incident with their daily struggle takes away the healing that they have in place and the prayer that they utilize by making their illness seem like they will just ‘get over it’ when that is not the case at all. They need time to drink in the healing that they are going through so they can make plans for what they need to change (if anything) and possible routes they might take.

Can you imagine if we were all on the same exact journey? Life would be no fun that way and would we all arrive at the same destination? Of course not. Just because the journey was ‘similar’ does not mean they are the same. Life is like that sometimes, we all think we’re headed to heaven but we do nothing in our life to get us there.

Reading and believing the bible isn’t going to get you there. Attending church isn’t any assurance that heaven will be your end destination. People tend to be misinformed when they think that the outward appearance of being a Christian is going to get them into heaven. 

All Christians may ‘appear’ to be the same but that is the farthest thing from the truth. We all are different in our journeying path but the one thread that unites us in a genetic strand of life is the blood of Jesus Christ running through our veins. 

Our disability isn’t what bonds us together. Our illness doesn’t define who we are in the living world. Our outward appearance isn’t the link to an eternal heaven. The only thing from the physical realm that is universally ours that we carry into the spiritual realm is LOVE. Love binds us all. Without love, the path will lead straight to hell and there will be no coming back to tell us about it on twitter, or facebook or through images on Instagram. 

So before telling someone to just ‘get over it’, or to pray more, hope for more, be more to the world; dig into the depths of your soul and find the love that lives there. When you want to hate…find love. If you feel the need to compare…do it with love. When you find a burning fire in your soul…douse the flames with love. 

Love is one of the hardest paths to journey on. You might think it is a simple task but tapping into the well of love on a daily basis is a struggle we all must face. You can give someone directions but that doesn’t mean they’ll follow them. Just as life and the trying storms we muddle through; we own our journey, it is ours alone. We might all strive to get to the same destination but we’ll all take different routes to get there.

May the God of love bless you all!

1 John 4:16 “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

Amen!

Quotation Saturday ~ Ego, Vanity, Empathy, Truth

1 Sam. 12:24 “Only fear the LORD, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you.”

EGO

“The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it.” 
― Criss Jami

“The Ego is a veil between humans and God’.”
“In prayer all are equal.” 
― Rumi

“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.” 
― Bill Bullard

“Accomplishments don’t erase shame, hatred, cruelty, silence, ignorance, discrimination, low self-esteem or immorality. It covers it up, with a creative version of pride and ego. Only restitution, forgiving yourself and others, compassion, repentance and living with dignity will ever erase the past.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

VANITY

“The wise do not buy into other people’s perceptions of who they are and what they are capable of. Instead, they bypass a person’s public persona and see who they are in their highest expression. When you see actions taken with integrity, instead of words only, you will then know a soul’s worth.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” 
― Jane Austen

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.” 
― Dale Carnegie

“Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.” 
― Blaise Pascal

EMPATHY

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” 
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” 
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.” 
― Andrew Boyd

“Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action.” 
― Daniel Goleman

TRUTH

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.” 
― Jim Morrison

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” 
― Søren Kierkegaard

“Equality is not a concept. It's not something we should be striving for. It's a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now.” 
― Joss Whedon

“The truth doesn't always set you free; people prefer to believe prettier, neatley wrapped lies” 
― Jodi Picoult

Pss. 51:6 “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.”

Quotation Saturday ~ Mercy

Luke 1:50 “And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.”

Compassion

“A human being is a part of the whole called by our universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” 
― Albert Einstein

“All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.” 
― Tahereh Mafi

“Compassion is the basis of morality.” 
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“How would your life be different if…You stopped making negative judgmental assumptions about people you encounter? Let today be the day…You look for the good in everyone you meet and respect their journey.” 
― Steve Maraboli

Empathy

“for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.” 
― Milan Kundera

“It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” 
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” 
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Mercy

“there is a God, there always has been. I see him here, in the eyes of the people in this [hospital] corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find Him... there is a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I will pray that He will forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity only to turn to Him now in my hour of need. I pray that He is as merciful, benevolent, and gracious as His book says He is.” 
― Khaled Hosseini

“The Lord's mercy often rides to the door of our heart upon the black horse of affliction.” 
― Charles Haddon Spurgeon

“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.” 
― Abraham Lincoln

“What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature when he had a chance!'
Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.” 
― J.R.R. Tolkien

Animals

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Man is the cruelest animal.” 
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“You can judge a man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.” 
― Paul McCartney