the lost sheep and its oftrack journeys

i was the lost sheep whom my father chose to bring back to His fold many many years back and the journey with Him from then on to be honest has not been very smooth but certainly it has been a journey of assurances mingled with joy unexpected and of comfort in times of struggle.

This world is not my place and some day like a swift bird i would like to fly away with all my dear ones to that abode , but still while i am in this world i oft times get so attached to it and its ways that i start going offtrack but the Guide walks beside me to bring me back ,that's why the christian way of life is one of Grace .

While watching a shepherd tending his flock i could easily see how like the sheep longing for the greener pastures, i too could wander away from the shepherd even be it in my thought life.

Thank you Lord for being my Shepherd and that i am the sheep that you love so much.

understanding life

I love the book of proverbs , it is the best book for practical knowledge.I have oft times tried viewing life from the "other" persons perspective, like for example what would it be for a person who is going thro' some painful experience, it has helped me to be more sensitive to people around, to make the most of each day, to pass on smiles or a kind word to some one in need.

Of late i am into memorizing lot of scripture portions, and it amazes me to discover that bible is book with so many practical tips.For instance- " let your yes be yes and your no be no" is a very profound statement.

I have realized so far that attempts of shrinking life into my own viewing space has been met with complete failure, for there are so many kinds of people in this world and each viewing life in their own perspective but the most important thread that sustains each one of them is belief.

I think king Solomon rightly says "the end of all conclusions is this - fear God and live peacefully""

I thank God for the spare time He has so kindly provided me which allows me to take time to reflect upon many subjects close to my heart.Otherwise in this fast paced world with the duties of motherhood and career balancing it would have been virtually impossible.

I want to pray for those who are going thro' times of stress , that they will find their rest in you Lord, give them times of rest and recreation.Amen

making the most of this day

the clock ticks away and with it takes away moments never to return back , never ever in times to come.But sweet memories can be build on moments gone by , for that sweet touch i must make the present moments sweet by making the most of them not by own efforts alone but with His grace too.

Give your best in all circumstances and leave the rest to the maker.

a better future

Every morning when i open the papers i invariably end up feeling whats happening in this big world of mine and when all this is going to change.Then i do some self explanation and if time permits seek answers from the scripture.The plight of people caught in helpless situations , war , terrorism, poverty, disease , slums, a section of people having no place to put their heads on , who have no hygiene, no sanitation, no surety of three times a day meal,beggars and then there is another section of people, moving around in A/C cars, stylish, making fashion statements, have loads of wealth but apparently unaware or atleast they seem so of the plight of the lesser ones.

Then there are the fanatics who go about killing or destroying the peace and integrity of human life in the name of religion.

Everyone does as it seems right to one's mind, so what can i do, thank God for the life he has given me today and to my near ones, pray fot the suffering ones, count my blessings, help by some means to some one who is needy, contribute to orphanages, money, food or clothes.

In my country there is plenty of need, people are waiting hopelessly for help.
If each of one us , the fortunate ones will learn to share, and teach our kids the same, probably the world has a chance of better and peaceful future.

the flower knows not its place

the first sun rays fell on the closed bud, it opened slowly , blinking its eyes to the new world around, then what,.............. in the evening with the sun setting down, the flower had withered and fallen down.
Its place of existence no more there.
Life is short, but God has brought us in with a new purpose , He loves us so much to waste it away in worries, anxieties and unknown fears.Live the moment given you today , do not worry about tomorrow, He will give you the Strength for the morrow.

Life seems uncertain but thrust it in the hands of One who is certain.

Soren Kierkegaard

It is quite true what Philosophy says: that Life must be understood backwards. But that makes one forget the other saying: that it must be lived—forwards. The more one ponders this, the more it comes to mean that life in the temporal existence never becomes quite intelligible, precisely because at no moment can I find complete quiet to take the backward- looking position.
- The Diary of Soren Kierkegaard; Kierkegaard, pt. 5, sct. 4, no. 136
http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/kierkegaard.shtml

seizing moments

A very old man was heard advising a young man --
"there is but one life to live, so dream big
pray to God to help u in fulfilling those dreams
make attempts to give wings to your dreams
Don't allow failure to limit u
smile at the storm even at the darkest moment, the silver lining will follow
remember God never deserts you , He knows u better than u yourself
in mundane dull moments, be positive
do the least task knowing he watches u
love life and live in peace with yourself and others
discipline your body and mind
Remember that sickness is part of life so pray for strength when u or your near ones suffer
expect miracles
stop worrying , commit your anxieties to the Lord
lead a a disciplined life
time menagemnet is important
spend time with the children and family for these precious moments don't come back
teach them fear of the Lord
be quick to listen and slow to speak
let your yes be yes and no be no
be wise like serpents and gentle as doves
do your best to help the poor
above all time never turns back so seize your moments"

it seemed to last foreever

things gone by
things that were close to my heart
things that lie within my reach
things that seemed to endure and last
things that that lit up my eyes
things that broadened my smile
things that brought warmth to my heart
things that dwindled every despair
things that filled me with hope and joy

where are they now?
they have all gone,

things that i took for granted to lost
alas' everything has moved away

i long for then now
but they are no more
my heart aches
but i see no solace

if only i had grasped those moments
moments that fleeted away...

i console myself '
look around myself ,introspect
this day is not going to come back
let me be happy and contended
for in as much as i have lost
i have gained something else
but both cannot be placed on same scales



“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

iam aiming to appear in an examination , i need to do lot of preparation for that, but often feel lack of motivation especially after staying at home for nearly 4 yrs.Next year my younger one will be off to school and i will be able to pursue my desired study or plan to take up a job.But i want to finish my course and than decide for the next phase of future.

Education has been a subject close too my heart and i have always excelled in my studies( thrice gold medallist}, "this is just to motivate me for my next venture".

Somebody had said to aspire for the future don't look at the past but in my case the glories of the past creates in me such inspiring vibrations for the future, a fulfilling career that i want to carve .Iam happy to have spent nearly 4 yrs at home with my kids and to have shared the intimacy and warmth that i could nit have been able to provide them.

I have seen my kids cherish my presence, and feel the warmth.Though to start with i was not a good cook but recognizing the needs of my children i slowly grasped this art of cooking , to be precise quick cooking.

I made lot of new snacks and invented quite a few dishes for them, that are easy to make.Learnt ways of housekeeping , time management but thro all what i loved most was to grab a good absorbing book , read it in whatever little time i had .

Iam really appreciative of my parents who have inculcated in me this habit of book reading .in a way in times of solitude , when my morale is low, books have been my best companions.

understanding lives

though iam not a psychologist , but i love watching people say , talk , react , share and the various ways they do it.I love to sit down and research ,as to what makes a particular person react in a particular manner.What are the factors contributing to our attitudes and personality shaping.I love reading memoirs and would enjoy sitting down and hearing somebody's life stories , the ups and downs of their lives, how they faced it , what was their motivation and what is their hope.
So in a nut shell iam a very good listener and i see various colours streaked on the rainbows of peoples lives as they narrate it.

BLESS YOUR KIDS THROUGH YOUR WORDS

say few words of praise and appreciation to your kids everyday to build in them positive thoughts.It affirms them of your love and care, it makes them to give back love and care to others, so in their small way they create a beautiful world.

the princess's wedding

today i was watching on the tv the weddings of rich and the famous.One of the weddings highlighted was of an indian's daughter.It was a beautiful wedding , planned meticulously, spread out for several days, each day hallmarked with a higlighted event. The wedding stage was like that set for a movie with huge paintings, floral decorations, ribbons, fountains and even a victorian styled chariot.Savoury dishes of nth kind, desserts, gift items to be distributed for those who attended, music, dance, an award ceremony for family members etc etc.The magnitude of planning was awesome, it was like a truly happy princess wedding finally marked with an splendid fireworks display.But what struck me most was the amount of money being spent on organising such a mega gala weddings.

There were times, though even today there are quiet a few who believe in it, when people prefered sober, quiet wedding with few close attendees.Some even believe it to be a great blessing if the rest of the money was given away on charity.

In a country like india marked by a stark difference between the rich and poor, the rich becoming super rich and poor , becoming more poorer, it comes out as harsh reality.
But thats the way most prefer it today.
There are very few who have come forward to give for the underprivileged.
Don't know when will there be an end of poverty in the world.

i cannot understand -
the sufferings in this world
the indifference of people towards it
the rich, super rich and their self styled philosophy

i cannot understand death
and the after life,
though i hope in one but have not seen an evidence of it

i cannot understand pain
though sometimes it is useful

i cannot understand money
though its just a paper
its power seems towering

I cannot understand ego
though iam aware of it yet i am unaware

i cannot understand the mind
full of fleeting thoughts
it seems limitless and without boundary

i cannot understand soul
but i believe in one

i cannot understand life
at one moment it is so serene and at another horrendous

i cannot understand faith
for at times its strong and at times its weak
but thats what keeps me going

i cannot understand God
he is unseen but still can be felt
he is the beginning and the end
it is the belief in him which keeps me going


life is a mystery but seeing is not always believing,
faith is believing without seeing
and it is true

the philosophy of Albert einstein

Albert Einstein was my one of my favorite scientists during my school days.A world famous physicist who was jewish in origin but was not an observant of its customs.He was introduced to great philosophical volumes during his school days.He had to struggle for a job after his studies. I always fostered a view of him as kind and compassionate scientist.Of late i was reading his views on God and religion and was bit surprised to know that he was a agnostic.

But what he calls as mystery , the incomprehensible, the limited scope of our reasoning are for me the first steps of realizing the presence of a God who runs this universe.He confesses that our minds are feeble and can only comprehend a very little of what is largely incomprehensible.
Some of his quotes are-

when asked about his religious beliefs he answered by saying that he doesn't believe in a personal god but the structure of the world creates in him an admiration for it.
He had said-
"The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.

It was the experience of mystery--even if mixed with fear--that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man"
My feeling is religious insofar as I am imbued with tile consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand more deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as "laws of nature."

— Letter to Beatrice Frohlich, December 17, 1952; Einstein Archive 59-797
http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/worldsee.html
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive With our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God.

— Quoted in the New York Times obituary April 19, 1955
“I believe in the brotherhood of man and the uniqueness of the individual. But if you ask me to prove what I believe, I can't. You know them to be true but you could spend a whole lifetime without being able to prove them. The mind can proceed only so far upon what it knows and can prove. There comes a point where the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge, but can never prove how it got there. All great discoveries have involved such a leap.”
The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility...The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.

—Albert Einstein
quoted in Calaprice, p. 197 from Ideas and Opinions, p. 272

on your marks, get , set, go.................

This is how i typically start my day.As soon as iam off my bed , the thought of the duties to perform consume my mind.I immediately start working on them.
-preparing breakfast.
- packing lunch
- getting my kids ready for school
- arranging the dining table
-having the morning devotion with my husband
- breakfast
-a prayer before leaving home-
-my younger daughter and myself are left behind then
- i work on the cleanliness of the house
-etc etc.I hate doing these chores.
What i love is the devotion time and the conversation time with my kids.
-finally comes the moment for which i wait for
-grab my cuppa, talk with my younger one, then rush off to my quiet place with my unsettled mind, with the hope of settling it.This is how i have been typically rushing thro my life.
As a student i got used to working late in the night, and till today after nearly a decade that part of mine has not fully gone.
I still hate mornings especially rushing for work.

i have seen and heard many others start it in a more peaceful and planned manner than mine.I sometimes wish i could just work on that aspect.I think i need to plan more on this.
Thank u Lord for impressing this on my mind.
I love watching other people live their lives , their daily lives,
and love hearing from them about their daily life.Not all are keen to share, many shrug it off as just the mundane routine, but i strongly feel it is these mundane routine which needs to be made exciting , to make life thrilling.
For our life is short and we never know how many days are left for us.

the humanist philosophy

i was reading a post on the views of a humanist, as to how to raise children without any religion.
It set me thinking, what makes humanist think that every thing under the sun can be explained by reason and that which is without reason and evidence is not true.
Many of them have moved into this way of life after being disappointed with their former religion.I myself have seen how religion can be very disappointing at times, especially when our questioning seems to echo back, with no answers for why and what is happening , but i strongly believe relying entirely on reasoning is limiting our belief.
Humanists on the contrary believe religion to be the limiting factor, which many times it is if we don't believe in conversing with the God we believe, when it is only one sided, when we fear some punishment for disobedience etc.
But going by ones own reasoning which is highly versatile and basing your belief entirely on evidence , again is entirely versatile, because seeing evidence is situational,
and more so believing that science and reason has solution for all, is like trusting only what man has been able to discover so far and that to come in future.
But moments when these same scientists failed to give reasons for what they have discovered or encountered- how do you account that?
Man's sense of reasoning out is highly situational.If perchance in a fit of bad temper or bad mood the scientist decides to use his discovery against mankind, who would account for the loss of life.

Religions and philosophy based entirely on reasoning have never been able to give explanations for the incomprehensible.

At the same time a religion should not be a binding but rather a delivering medium.
Questioning and interpreting is part of a healthy belief system.

The bible itself contains many portions that seem to offer no explanations.
The old testament can be easily misinterpreted, but the teachings of Christ talk about love, forgiveness, sacrifice, .

Faith and reasoning can work together but sometimes faith needs to transcend reasoning.Even when the skies are gray you sometimes need to have faith that there is silver lining being masked by the dark clouds though sight offers a different view.
When our hopes are utterly lost and our own vision has grown dim only then we will see the sight of God.
It requires our emptying for Him to fill us.
Have u ever reached a stage where you have seized from your own attempts and own reasoning, where your self dies.
Even the humanists will believe that every human being has ego.It is this which has to die.Even for christian His coming to Christ once upon a time is not enough , he needs to empty himself everyday not as a ritual or rule but as a involuntary process of living, which is very hard to do, that is the involuntary nature thats were we need the help of Christ. self effort makes belief a law and forbids freedom.
Beginning of the death of self is the beginning of the knowledge of God.
But the death should be for deliverance.
to be continued....

















i

Life's Classroom

Life is classroom and we are the students,
Each day is a new lesson and a new learning.
How we do our homework prepares us well for the next days lessons.
If we fail to perceive what it teaches we will fail but we can always correct our perceptions and thus prepare well for the next lessons.
But the lessons don't seem to have subject like categories they seem to be versatile differing for each person .What holds good for one may not be good for the other person.
How one handles the lessons seem to be more important than what lessons he has to handle
How each one handles is the important factor.
What makes one to handle better than other is it
- the preparation time given to it,
- or how well were the preparations given to the individual
-or how well the student has perceived its fundamentals
-or what frame of mind is he while handling those lessons
his preparations may have been well , but something that would have disturbed him may cuase him to get distracted.
Every individual faces different situations and handle them in different ways because they have been raised in different backgrounds and different circumstances have shaped them

there was this small heart in that huge man,
he was not able to walk,
unable to carry his own load,
breathing with difficulty,
often stopping by to take some fresh breath,

i wondered why do we allow so much fat to come in,
why don't we see its ill effect,
how gradually it grows,
from small to huge deposits,
loosening us, making us flabby,
our faces swell ,our arms swell,
we loose our shape,
widening its grip on us,
entering our blood vessels and forming clogs,
going gets tough,
bending is like hill climbing,
stairs are avoided for it becomes too difficult to climb,

but with all this '
when u see that tempting chocolate or cheese ad,
the very next moment your hand opens the fridge,
and down goes that big lump,
and then follows the laughter of that killer adipocyte,
for it has grown bigger,


Wait and ponder at the plight of that poor small heart,
pumping hard to give u life,
forcing its blood through clogged lanes'
it dies every second to add to your life.

Think of that small heart in that huge man before that dangerous lump goes inside.

be the beam that beckons

But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. ~ Galatians 5: 13

As people representing Christ if we lead a life contrary to what Jesus preaches then its a hypocrisy.
Even daily behaviors , our beliefs, our view points can label us as hypocrites, if we say we believe in Christ but our lifestyle/ mindset points something else e.g
shouting at others,
selfishness,
showing attitudes,
throwing weights'
eating too much,
money mindedness,
laziness,
swearing, gossiping,
not helping those in need,
anxiety,
worrying,
fretfulness,
trusting man than God,
parochialism
etc.
but then when we come to Christ we come to Him with our old nature- with our baggage of childhood habits and beliefs, our family upbringing, our education, our preformed thought patterns.So all this comes in with Christ thats why it is the beginning of the walk with Christ.
From there we must daily wash ourselves in our mind and in our actions as our Lord points to us when we read His word or meditate upon Him.

That's why so many are fleeing from church because Christ is pulling them but Church is repelling them away.Christ loves all and He never formed Christianity, he seeks everybody , those who want meaning and purpose in life, those who are forsaken by the world, those who view themselves as failures, the unwanted , the unattractive, the thirsty, the unloved, the betrayed, the grief stricken , the confused , every one of us .But we claiming ourselves to be His flock create hindrance through our words, our mouths, our view points, our actions and our attitudes.


So we should be careful how we walk especially before calling ourselves His children.

We should have humility, self control, be responsible , helpful, lifting up the oppressed and downtrodden, showing forgiveness, love , mercy, peacemakers.
His strength and not our own.
We may not be able to do it always , but we can precondition ourselves for this approach.

What has the world to offer today,
hatred, violence, starvation, greed, poverty, crimes, betrayal, hopelessness, rejection, desperation, selfishness.

Let us try to be the beam that beckons standing tall in the darkness.
Its very difficult that's why we need His presence and His power .

focussing

i thought and thought
about what to focus upon,
for in my mind where swirling thoughts
hitting me from every corner
please streamline them Lord,
they are too clouded,
my actions depend on my thoughts
for out of the abundance of heart our mouth speaks,

then i calmed myself
seizing from all efforts
allowing thoughts to calm down

Then flowed in the impact of
peaceful thoughts,
refreshing me, assuring me,
of a stronger hand behind me,
controlling my thought life

We forget the amount of work our mind does everyday, so much information processing,
then comes the choices that we make for every action we perform, even every passive
information that slips in influence us for they too get registered.

From this complex mess, streamlining happens, giving us the clarity, but what about the redundant impulses, where do they go, even they lie in some corner of our head to surface at unknown times of stimuli.

Amazing, and God knows every bit of what's happening inside.
incomprehensible ,

For there things beyond our comprehension,
and beyond our limited mind to grasp.