A Quote by Thomas G. Long

A couple you do not recognize - visitors, strangers - come to the door. How are you to view these people and what is your responsibility towards them? ... To assume that these visitors are really like you, that there are no real difference between you and them, and that the highest goal possible is that you and the other members of your congregation will become intimate friends with them and invite them into the private spaces of your life.
If you cannot read all your books...fondle them---peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them, at any rate, be your acquaintances.
Make that extra effort for every relationship. Whether it's with your parents, your children, your husband or your friends. It makes a difference to them. I try to give my kids a lot of solo time where I play with them, talk to them, listen to them. Similarly, you give time for your workout. You slot a time for it, no matter what.
I think the most useful thing you can do as a writer is to reconstruct real life with all its color, hardship, joy, and intrigue. If you're interested in people, you honor them best, I think, by making the fullest possible picture of them. Your subjects may - and from my experience probably will - protest your portrait of them.
Who will bring light to the poor? Who will travel from door to door bringing education to them? Let these people be your God-think of them, work for them, pray for them incessantly. The Lord will show you the way.
Your photography is a record of your living - for anyone who really sees. You may see and be affected by other people's ways, you may even use them to find your own, but you will have eventually to free yourself of them. That is what Nietzche meant when he said, 'I have just read Schopenhauer, now I have to get rid of him.' He knew how insidious other people's ways could be, particularly those which have the forcefulness of profound experience, if you let them get between you and your own personal vision.
"Ideals are like stars," Carl Schurz wrote. "You will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like seafarers on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny." Ideals do not determine what we do to make a living in life; They govern what we become as we do it.
Mothers, take time to be a real friend to your children. Listen to your children, really listen. Talk with them, laugh and joke with them, sing with them, cry with them, hug them, honestly praise them. Yes, regularly spend unused one-on-one time with each child. Be a real friend to your children.
You have to really respect what your kids are doing with their kids and how they're raising them. You can't push your way into areas where you shouldn't be saying anything. You have to always remember they're not your own kids. Play with them, love them, spoil them to death - then hand them back.
Come here and take off your clothes and with them every single worry you have ever carried. My fingertips on your back will be the last thing you will feel before sleeping and the sound of my smile will be the alarm clock to you morning ears. Come here and take off your clothes and with them the weight of every yesterday that snuck atop your shoulders and declared them home. My whispers will be the soundtrack to your secret dreams and my hand the anchor to the life you will open your eyes to. Come here and take off your clothes.
Refuse to let your love grow cold. Stir up love in your life - towards your spouse and towards your family, friends, neighbours, co-workers. Reach out to others who are hurting and in need. Pray for people and bless them. Grow to the point that one of your first thoughts each morning in your heart is about how you can bless someone else that day.
You might think you're connecting with your friends on Facebook but when was the last time you went out with your friends and asked them how they were doing? When was the last time you called them and prayed with them and really had a conversation? Go ahead and do those things with social media. I get it. I really do. But if you're lacking the other things, that's when it's out of balance and you're not really connected.
When you are a child of the mountains yourself, you really belong to them. You need them. They become the faithful guardians of your life. If you cannot dwell on their lofty heights all your life, if you are in trouble, you want at least to look at them.
If your fundamental is a man dying on the cross for his enemies, if the very heart of your self-image and your religion is a man praying for his enemies as he died for them, sacrificing for them, loving them - if that sinks into your heart of hearts, it's going to produce the kind of life that the early Christians produced. The most inclusive possible life out of the most exclusive possible claim - and that is this is the truth. But what is the truth? The truth is a God become weak, loving and dying for the people who opposed him, dying forgiving them.
What I WILL say is this. What you interpret is not MY fault. It's yours. The first step in owning your life, your body and your destiny is to OWN the thoughts that come out of your own head. I didn't create them. You created them. So if you want to continue ‘hating’ this image, get used to hating many other things for the rest of your life.
When you have a good friend that really cares for you and tries to stick in there with you, you treat them like nothing. Learn to be a good friend because one day you're gonna look up and say I lost a good friend. Learn how to be respectful to your friends, don't just start arguments with them and don't tell them the reason, always remember your friends will be there quicker than your family. Learn to remember you got great friends, don't forget that and they will always care for you no matter what. Always remember to smile and look up at what you got in life.
Ever wonder how much patience you should have with someone, you know, before you lose your temper? Infinite. But careful now. That doesn't mean you have to wait for them, stay with them, or hang around them. Lord no, it just means that for as long as you choose to keep them in your life, understanding them, not changing them, is everything.
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