Please say a prayer for the wife of a dear friend and fellow brainking member,Max aka Miss Tatiana. She is in hospital with an aneurysm. Thank you...her name is Dorothy.

Pbarb2: Thank you Barb,I agree. We all know God is Great but sometimes a gentle reminder is needed so we remember how Great He is!! And how very much He loves us!

Tuesday: I'm glad you found that helpful, <smile>
Hope you are well.

'To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did..' When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing you, but merely opening your hands to receive something better. Concentrate on this sentence... 'The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.'

My son dislocated his kneecap 3 weeks ago. A more serious injury than I would have guessed. He is only now returning to school! He will wear the cast until Nov 27 then wear the splint again while he does physiotherapy.
I will say a prayer for your son.... and for you

Summer Flame: My son has been in a leg cast for the past 2 weeks (3 if you count the week in a splint) and it does get easier :-)

' When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing you,but merely opening your hands to receive something better.
Concentrate on this sentence.....
'The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you. '

Three Bullets

There once was a man who had nothing for his family to eat. He had an old rifle and three bullets.
So, he decided that he would go out hunting and kill some wild game for dinner. As he went down the road, he saw a rabbit. He shot at the rabbit and missed it. The rabbit ran away.
Then he saw a squirrel and fired a shot at the squirrel and missed it. The squirrel disappeared into a hole in a cottonwood tree.
As he went further, he saw a large wild 'tom' turkey in the tree, but he had only one bullet remaining. A voice spoke to him and said, 'Pray first, aim high and stay focused'.
However, at the same time, he saw a deer which was a better kill. He brought the gun down and aimed at the deer. But, then he saw a rattlesnake between his legs about to bite him, so he naturally brought the gun down further to shoot the rattlesnake.
Still, the voice said to him, 'I said 'Pray, Aim high and Stay focused.' So, the man decided to listen to God's voice.
He prayed, then aimed the gun high up in the tree and shot the wild turkey. The bullet bounced off the turkey and killed the deer. The handle fell off the gun and hit the snake in the head and killed it. And, when the gun had gone off, it knocked him into a pond. When he stood up to look around, he had fish in all his pockets, a dead deer and a turkey to eat for his family.
The snake (Satan) was dead simply because the man listened to God.

Moral of the story:
Pray first before you do anything, aim high in your goals.
Stay focused on God.
Never let others discourage you concerning your past. The past is exactly that, 'the past.'
Live every day one day at a time and remember that only God knows our future and that He will not put you through any more than you can bear.
Do not look to man for your blessings, but look to the doors that only God has prepared in advance for you in your favor.
Wait, be still and patient: keep God first and everything else will follow.

FROM ONE FRIEND TO ANOTHER...
Don't worry about tomorrow, God is already there!!!

Rick Warren (REMEMBER, HE WROTE 'PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE')

You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren,

'Purpose Driven Life ' author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California

In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:

People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me.

I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort.

God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ's likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.

I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.

Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems.

If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness,' which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her.

It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.

It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.

So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.
Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.

Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?

Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.
That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.

Wanda (CurrentRiver) was released from hospital on Thursday the 15th of May. She is doing much better (it was a close call). She tells me she doesn't know when she'll be back online as she has no webtv right now...lightening. I told her there were a lot of people praying for her on brainking and she was thankfull

Please remember CurrentRiver in your prayers. She is in hospital. Her appendix burst and there have been complications.

She always brightened my day when we chatted in our games. Heaven is brighter with her there.

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small uninhabited island.
He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him, and everyday he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.
Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of
driftwood to protect himself from the elements and to store his
few possessions.
One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his
little hut in flames with smoke rolling up to the sky.
The worst had happened! Everything was lost!
He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger.
"God, how could you do this to me?" he cried.
Early the next day he was awakened by the sound
of a ship that was approaching the island.
It had come to rescue him.
"How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers.
"We saw your smoke signal," they replied.
Moral of the story:
It's easy to get discouraged when things are going bad, but we
shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our lives,
even in the midst of pain and suffering.
Remember that, the next time your little hut seems to be burning to the ground.
It just may be a smoke signal that summons the grace of God.

One : Don't miss the boat.
Two : Remember that we are all in the same boat.
Three : Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.
Four : Stay fit When you're 600 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big.
Five : Don't listen to critics; just get on with the job that needs to be done.
Six : Build your future on high ground.
Seven : For safety's sake, travel in pairs.
Eight : Speed isn't always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs.
Nine : When you're stressed, float a while.
Ten : Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Eleven : No matter the storm, when you are with God, there's always a rainbow waiting

May your troubles be less,
may your blessings be more,
and may nothing but happiness
come through your door!

Oceans Apart: My thoughts and prayers are with your friend's daughter and those who love her. And Dan, also your friend and their family.
My sister died of a brain tumor at the age of 6...it was inoperable. My cousin has an inoperable brain tumor but after several years of keeping an eye on it it looks like it poses no threat to her.
No one knows why we all have to go through these life trials but I am a firm believer that God does all things well. We may not know the reason but God does and we just have to trust Him...the same way our children trust us.
God Bless.

My dear friend Kring Krystal has asked me to remember his wife Dorothy in my prayers because she has undergone surgery. I ask that anyone reading this will also remember Dorothy and Max in their prayers. Thank you.