Jerusalem Awaits!!!

A poor farm woman brought her daughter to the capital so that she might earn money as a maid. From what she could send home, they will be able to buy some land and some cattle.

The girl was beautiful and clever. She learned very quickly that in a big city, a girl like her could earn much more by not working than by working. She succeeded in attracting rich lovers. Passing from one to another, she gathered jewels, cars, and furs and indulged in a life of fun.

In her life of fun she forgot about her old mother altogether. One day she remembered painfully. Taking the train to her village, she arrived late at night. Approaching the gate of her mother’s house, she discovered it was wide open. She was surprised, because she knew it had always been locked with great care.

She passed through the yard saw that the room in which her mother slept had the light on. When she was on the threshold, the mother called from inside, “Jean, is it you?”

“Yes mother. But how is it that the gate is wide open so late at night?”

“My daughter, for ten years, ever since you left, the gate has never been locked.”

“And how is it that there is a light in your room so late?”

“My daughter, for ten years the light has never been off. The loving heart of a mother waited for you.”

The heavenly Jerusalem is our mother. She awaits us.

THERE IS A SILVER LINING BEHIND EVERY DARK CLOUD...

Once upon a time, there was a prince who received a very rare and beautiful bird. He named it Twee-Twee and placed it in a golden cage. But the poor creature was not impressed by the gold. It pleaded for freedom, but the prince liked it too much to part with it. Then Twee-Twee begged him at least to visit her relatives in the forest and tell them that, thou captive, she was still alive.

The prince went and told them. At once, Twee-Twee’s sister fell to the ground, and the prince realized that she had been killed by grief of knowing freedom-loving Twee-Twee was in a cage. Sad at heart, he returned and told Twee-Twee the sad news that her sister had died. Immediately, Twee-Twee collapsed the same way at the bottom of the cage. The prince then took the poor bird out and threw her through the window. What was the purpose in keeping her when she was dead? In a flash, Twee-Twee flew away and from a chirped, “what you thought was bad news was a lesson. By pretending to have died, my sister taught me the way to escape.

Jerusalem Awaits!!!

judge not!!!

An angel had no peace in heaven because of the torments through which the inhabitants of hell passed. Again and again hw would descend to them asking them to remember at least some good deed which he then would bring before God as a plea to obtain their release. But these had done no good deeds. In the end, a lady remembered, “I gave an onion to a beggar. Is this not a good deed?”

“It surely is,” replied the angel. He flew to the archives of heaven and found in her files a note about the onion. He then took an onion to hell and told her, “Hold it with your hand. I will also hold it at the other end and we will fly upwards”.  They did so. The onion held well. The weight did not break it. She flew upwards. When the others saw this, they took hold of her garments, arms and feet. Others took hold of the feet of those who clung to the woman. Multitudes clustered beneath her and the onion resisted. They all began to fly towards heaven. But the woman, looking down, saw them all and was afraid that the skin would tear and she would fall, so she pushed the others away with her elbows, telling them, “Remain in hell, you sinners, who have never done anything good”. In that moment, the onion broke. A sinner herself, she had judged others. This was the end of all her hopes. Because we are all sinners, we should love one another not judge.

JOKE

A friend was in front of me coming out of church one day and the preacher was standing at the door as he always is to shake hands. He grabbed my friend and pulled him said aside to him, “you need to join the army of the Lord!

My friend replied, “I’m already in the Army of the Lord.

Pastor questioned, “how come I don’t see you around except at Christmas and Easter?”

He whispered back, “I’m in the secret service

All that glitters definately cant be gold, can it?

This is a story that teaches us not to take anything at “face” value. Look deeply and show a little kindness to all you meet. The narrator narrates:

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms out to patients at the clinic.

One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. “Why, he’s hardly taller than my eight-year old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped shriveled body. But the appealing thing was his face – lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came from the eastern shore and there is no bus till morning.”

He told me he had been hunting for a room since noon but no success, no one seemed to have a room, “I guess it’s my face…I know it looks terrible, but the doctor says with a few more treatments…

For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me; “I could sleep on the rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.”

I told him that I would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. “No thank you, I have plenty.” And he held up a brown paper bag. When I finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn’t take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me that he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.

He didn’t tell it by a way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was preface with thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for the strength to keep going. At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children’s room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch.

He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said “could I please come back and stay next time I have treatment? I won’t put you out a bit; I will sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment and then added, “your children made me feel at home. Grown-ups are bothered by my face but children don’t seem to mind.” I told him he was welcome to come again. On his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so they would be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00am and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.

In the year he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning.”Did you keep that awful-looking man last night? I turned him away! You lose roomers by putting up with such people!” maybe we did lose roomers once or twice, but oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear.

I know our family will always be grateful to have known him; from him we have learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God. Recently I was visiting e friend who had a greenhouse. As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting into blooms. But to my surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, “if this were my plant, I’d put it in the loveliest container I had!”

My friend changed my mind. “I ran short of pots” she exclaimed, “and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting out in this old pail. It’s just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden.” She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining one scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said that when he came to the soul of sweet old fisherman. “He won’t mind starting in this small body. All this happened a long time ago. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at.

Joke

A friend was in front of me coming out of church one day and the preacher was standing at the door as he always is to shake hands. He grabbed my friend and pulled him said aside to him, “you need to join the army of the Lord!

My friend replied, “I’m already in the Army of the Lord.

Pastor questioned, “how come I don’t see you around except at Christmas and Easter?”

He whispered back, “I’m in the secret service

A BEAUTIFUL AND TOUCHING STORY

The sad truth is that opportunity doesn’t knock twice. You can put things off until tomorrow but tomorrow may never come. Where will you be in a few years down the line. Will it be everything you dreamed off. We seal our fate with the choices we make, but don’t give second thought to the chances we take – Gloria Estafan.

Every Sunday afternoon, as it came time for the Pastor and his son to go to the streets with their tracts, it was very cold outside, as well as pouring rain. The boy bundled up his warmest and driest clothes and said, ‘OK, dad, I’m ready.’

His pastor dad asked, ‘Ready for what?’

‘Dad, it’s time we gather our tracts together and go out.’

Dad responds, ‘Son, it’s very cold outside and it’s pouring rain.’

The boy gives his dad a surprised look asking, ‘But Dad, aren’t people going to hell, even though it is raining?’

Dad answers, ‘Son, I am not going out in this weather.’

Despondently, the boy asks, ‘Dad, can I go? Please?

His father hesitated for a moment then said, ‘Son, you can go. Here are the tracts, be careful son.’

Thanks Dad!’

And with that, he was off and out into the rain. This eleven year old boy walked the streets of the town going door to door and handing everybody he met in the street a gospel tract. After two hours of walking in the rain, he was soaking, bone-chilled wet and down to his VERY LAST TRACT. He stopped at a corner and looked for someone to hand a tract to, but the streets were totally deserted. Then he turned towards the first home he saw and started up the sidewalk to the front door and rang the door bell. He rang the bell but nobody answered. He rang it again and again, but still no one answered. He waited but still no answer.

Finally this eleven year old trooper turned to leave but something stopped him. Again, he turned to the door and rang the bell and knocked loudly on the door with his fist. He waited, something holding him there on the front porch!. He rang the bell and this time the door slowly opened. Standing in ht e doorway was a very sad looking elderly lady. She softly asked, ‘What can I do for you, son?’

With radiant eyes and a smile that lit up her world, this little boy said, ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry if I disturbed you, but I just want to tell you that “JESUS REALLY DOES LOVE YOU” and I came to give you my very last gospel tract which will tell you all about JESUS and His great LOVE..’ with that, he handed her his last tract and turned to leave. She called to him as he departed, ‘Thank you, Son! God Bless You!’

Well, the 2^nd service of the following Sunday morning in church, Pastor Dad was in the pulpit. As the service began, he asked, ‘Does anybody have a testimony or want to share something?’. Slowly, in the back row of the church, an elderly lady stood to her feet. As she began to speak, a look of glorious radiance came from her face, ‘No one in this church knows me. I’ve never been here before. You see, before last Sunday I was not a Christian. My husband passed on some time ago, leaving me totally alone in this world. Last Sunday, being a particularly cold and rainy day, it was even more so in my heart that I came to the end of the line where I no longer had any hope or will to live.

So I took a rope and a chair and ascended the stairway into the attic of my home. I fastened the rope securely to a rafter in the roof, then stood on the chair and fastened the other end of the rope around my neck. Standing on that chair so lonely and broken-hearted I was about to leap off, when there the loud ringing of my doorbell downstairs startled me. I thought, I’ll wait a minute, and whoever it is will go away.’

I waited and waited, but the ringing doorbell seemed to get louder and more insistent, and then the person ringing also started knocking loudly… I thought to myself again, ‘Who on earth could this be? Nobody ever rings my bell or comes to see me.’ I loosened the rope from my neck and started for the front door, all the while the bell rang louder and louder. When I opened the door and looked I could hardly believe my eyes, for there on my front porch was the most radiant and angelic little boy I have ever seen in my life. His SMILE, oh, I could never describe it to you!

The words that came out of his mouth caused my heart that had long been dead TO LEAP TO LIFE as he exclaimed with a cherub-like voice, ‘Ma’am, I just came to tell you that JESUS REALLY DOES LOVE YOU.’ Then he gave me a gospel tract that I now hold in my hand. As the little angel disappeared back out into the cold and rain, I closed the door and read slowly every word of the Gospel tract. Then I went up the attic to get my rope and chair, I wouldn’t be needing them anymore.

You see--- I am now a Happy Child of the KING. Since the address of your church was at the back of the tract, I have come here personally to say THANK YOU to God’s little angel who came just in the nick of time and by doing so, spared my soul from an eternity in hell’.

There was not a dry eye in the church. And as shouts of praise and honour to THE KING resounded off the very rafters of the building, Pastor Dad descended from the pulpit to the front pew where the little angel was seated… he took his son in his arms and sobbed uncontrollably. Probably no church has had a more glorious moment and probably this universe has never seen a Papa that was more filled with love & honour for his son…Except for One

God has His eye on you

A woman wanted to find out the process of refining silver and get back at her next bible study. That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him work. She didn’t mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.


As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames hottest so as to burn away all the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in such hot spot; the she thought about the verse that says: “He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.” She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver is left a moment too long in the flames, it could be destroyed. The woman was silent for a while. Then she asked the silversmith, “How do you know when the silver is refined?” He smiled at her and answered”oh that’s easy – when I see my image in it”.

If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has His eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

 
Life is a coin. You can spend It anyway you widh but you can only spend it once.
 
 
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Positive thinking is ...when you look to the sky and a bird shits on your face, you just dont mind but thank God that cows don't fly.
 
It takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to like them but many years to forget the. you are a speaicl friend.
 
Joke
There was once a hat-seller who passed by a forest. The weather was very hot and he decided to take a nap under one of the trees, so he left his whole basket of hats by the side. A few hours later, he woke up and realized that all his hats were gone. Then he heard some monkeys on top of the tree and he looked up. To his surprise, the tree was full of monkeys. They had taken all of his hats! The hat-seller sits down and try to think of how he can get his hats down. He started to think and scratched his head. The next moment, he realized the monkeys were doing the same thing. Next, he took down his own hat and fanned himself. The monkeys did exactly the same! An idea struck him- he took off his hat and threw it on the floor and the monkeys did the same too. Happily he collected all his hats back. Fifty years later, his grandson also became a hat-seller and also got to hear the monkey story from his grandfather. One day just like his grandfather, he passed by the same forest. Feeling very hot, he took a nap under the same tree and left the hats on the floor. He woke up and realized that his hat were gone. He looked up and found that the monkeys had taken all his hats. Remembering what his grandfather had told him, he started scratching his head and the monkeys followed. He took down his hats and fanned himself and again the monkeys followed.


Now very convinced of his grandfather’s idea, he threw his hat on the floor…but to his surprise, the monkeys still held on to their hats! Then one bold monkey climbed down the tree, grabbed the hat on the floor, gave him a slap and said, “Idiot, you think say na only you get grandpapa!!! De monkey ma get grandpapa ha ha ha ha”.

If Men Were Banks, Which will You be?

The easy going ones that like to keep their own peace but doesn’t care deeply – Oceanic Bank

The happy ones that would spend money on you carelessly just to have you but not for love – intercontinental bank

The small home boy who will always say ‘’you are welcome” – First Inland bank

Those that are lousy, think everything is possible and can even rape you when they hear “NO” – Bank PHB

The gentleman who cares about his lady….very faithful, even when she misbehaves – Fidelity bank

The tall guy that says “YES” when they mean to lie, they’ll say “don’t worry” when indeed you are missing – Skye bank

The very old stingy guys who think that a lady must pay their own bills yet “dem wan do” – UBA

The very proud and arrogant ones, who love titles, think they are unique and always brag they can take you there – Zenith Bank

The old papa who doesn’t know how to dress, walk or dance well but can be trusted – Union bank

Those who are nervously social and in a hurry to pamper you even when you don’t need it because “dem no get enough time” – Access bank

The gold diggers who want to share everything with ladies- partnership that doesn’t work – ETB

Those that request you to respect them by all means because they are men too, “afterall our MD na man too”!!! - FCMB

Those that are too shy to respect you even when they love you – Sterling Bank

Those that are too old with pot belly….the sugar daddies that love to “boogie” – First Bank

Those that are okay sha! …but but unfortunately not ready for love, they want to be on their own – Diamond bank

Those “anyhow guys” that want to encourage themselves to stand tall even when they are short – Afribank

The fine gentlemen, handsome, lovely, amicable, trustworthy and cool but doesn’t like to mingle – GTB

Those that are “born again” and would not want ladies that can stress them – Eco bank

Those that are old but still behave childishly, the mummy’s big boys – Unity Bank

The civil servant who complains too much about lean purse – Spring bank

Those who smoke, drink and gamble too much and doesn’t care what anybody says; ‘my promotion comes from the Lord’ – Wema bank

The ones that want to “form big boys” even when they are poor – Stanbic IBTC

The immature ones that want big things – Micro Finance bank.

-Original Author unknown.

 
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A friend is like a book that has to be read to appreciate its beauty. As such, you’re one of the finest books ever written!! How I wish I could reprint you. Wow!!
 
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Everyone hears what you say, friends listen to what you say and best friends listen to what you don't say.