People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.

Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.

Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you.

Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.

Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today will often be forgotten.

Do good anyway.

Give the best you have and it will never be enough.

Give your best anyway.

~Mother Teresa~

Do not let that hope die! Stake your lives on it! We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.

~ Pope John Paul II, WYD 2002 sermon

In the bleak midwinter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter,

Long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him,

Nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away

When He comes to reign;

In the bleak midwinter

A stable place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty,

Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom Cherubim

Worship night and day

A breastful of milk

And a manger full of hay.

Enough for Him whom angels

Fall down before,

The ox and ass and camel

Which adore.

Angels and Archangels

May have gathered there,

Cherubim and Seraphim

Thronged the air;

But only His mother,

In her maiden bliss,

Worshipped the Beloved

With a kiss.

What can I give Him,

Poor as I am?

If I were shepherd

I would bring a lamb,

If I were wise man

I would do my part,

Yet what I can I give Him --

Give my heart.

~ Christina Rossetti ~

Living in true beauty can require much waiting, much time, much tenacity of spirit. We must constantly direct our gazes toward the face of God, even in the presence of longing and sorrow. It is in the waiting that our hearts are enlarged. The waiting does not diminish us. As a pregnant woman is enlarged in her waiting, so are our hearts. God does not always rescue us out of a painful season. You know that he does not always give to us what we so desperately want when we want it. He is after something much more valuable than our happiness. Much more substantive than our health. He is restoring and growing in us an eternal weight of glory. And sometimes. . . it hurts.

~Stasi Eldredge

from Captivating