I Take off the MASK!

“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.”  – Maya Angelou

Sometimes you can feel that things are going to be worse before they get better. Deep in your heart, you know you will make it through! But before that happy day, you will have to survive the storm ahead and use all the courage that you have to keep your hope from failing you.

Notice what happens when a house is being rebuilt. There comes a time when it’s as though the house is being utterly destroyed. But that’s not so! The foundations are merely being made stronger, the ceiling is being made higher and the rooms are being made larger and more beautiful than before.

So don’t be dismayed. For as long as you know the good that will come out of it, pray for the patience and the strength to make it through.

Expect a smooth road to success and you will get frustrated with every pebble. Expect natural setbacks and you will find that there will always be a way to victory no matter the obstacles that come your way.– Jocelyn Soriano

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” -Michelangelo

“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.” -Louisa May Alcott

“Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.” -Lao Tzu

“You never know what’s around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you’ve climbed a mountain.”-Tom Hiddleston

“It is a happiness to wonder; — it is a happiness to dream.” – Edgar Allan Poe, Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe

“Dreams are necessary to life.” – Anaïs Nin

“We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body.”– Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage

“Don’t you find it odd,” she continued, “that when you’re a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you’re older, somehow they act offended if you even try.” – Ethan Hawke, The Hottest State

“And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.”– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“Sometimes we get through adversity only by imagining what the world might be like if our dreams should ever come true.” – Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France, Works of Anatole France

“It is our wounds that create in us a desire to reach for miracles. The fulfillment of such miracles depends on whether we let our wounds pull us down or lift us up towards our dreams.” – Jocelyn Soriano

“Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give to others much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave.” – Pope Benedict XVI

A single look can change one’s day from gloom to happiness. Have you ever experienced seeing someone smile at you just when you’re having a bad day and that smile quickly changed how you felt? There is a look that gives courage, confidence and hope. There is a look that uplifts you instead of bringing you down. It is a look that penetrates deep into our hearts, seeing what’s good and beautiful in there, past our shadows and our many fears.

We may not have enough money to give away, but may we never run out of this look of love. Giving it away is like sending healing rays that warms the heart, giving others new hope to carry on.

“I have no silver or gold, but what I have, that I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!” – Acts 3:6, WEB-BE

You may also want to read:
To Look Using God’s Own Eyes
Loving Yourself Through God’s Eyes
Invisible

“The poor do not need our compassion or our pity; they need our help. What they give to us is more than what we give to them.” – Mother Teresa, Heart of Joy

Giving blesses both the giver and the receiver of the gift. Unless we recognize this, we shall never be worthy givers but shall remain as proud donors looking down upon our beneficiaries. Receiving a gift does not make one lowly. Giving does not make one a better or greater person than the one being given.

It is a great privilege to be of help to others. It is an honor on our part to be channels of God’s love here on earth. This is something we owe to those who humbly and generously receive our small tokens of love.

“I ask that God in his good will may at last make it possible for me to visit you now. For I want very much to see you, in order to share a spiritual blessing with you to make you strong. What I mean is that both you and I will be helped at the same time, you by my faith and I by yours.” – Romans 1:10-12,GNT

“Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.”–  Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones

There are times when your dream is already coming true but you can’t see it yet because it may not arrive in exactly the same way you thought or it comes disguised as a challenge to be overcome. Your dream may be nearer than you think it is so don’t give up! You’d be surprise just how everything has happened without you noticing it, like a butterfly that soon comes out of its cocoon or a flower suddenly blooming from a bud.

“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.” – Anaïs Nin