“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” ~ Psalm 56:8 ~
“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are evil.” ~ Tolkien ~
“Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.” ~ da Vinci ~
“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.”             ~ Washington Irving ~
“The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.” ~ J. V. Cheney ~
“…tears are words, waiting to be written.” ~ Paulo Coelho ~
“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.” ~ Karen Blixen ~
“Tears are the silent language of grief.” ~ Voltaire ~
“Tears are the safety value of the heart when too much pressure is laid on it.”     ~ Albert Smith ~
“You left and I cried tears of blood. My sorrow grows. But when you left, my eyes went with you. Now, how will I cry?” ~ Rumi ~
“The Christian life is not a constant high. I have my moments of deep discouragement. I have to go to God in prayer with tears in my eyes and say, “Oh God forgive me,’ or ‘Help me’. ” ~ Billy Graham ~
“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.” ~ C. S. Lewis ~
“Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again.” ~ Alex Tan ~
“Past tears are present strength.” ~ George MacDonald ~
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed.”              ~ Revelation 21:4 ~
Please remember in prayer the families of two locals who committed suicide, those in the California fires especially Paradise and Magalia. Remember those who struggle during the holidays because of death or estrangement.
Jim needs physical healing as does Minnie.
In the midst of sorrow, I’m thankful for my friends Mandy and Joe who, Thanksgiving Day, were headed to Texas and God prevented them from being in a head on collision. Just a short time later, that same driver killed three people and herself in head on crashes.
We’re leaving November, perched on the edge of December and, for the most part, blessings outweigh sorrows. Treat yourself gently, save quiet time to renew yourself and don’t try to do it all by yourself. This week a name will be randomly drawn from the e-list and that person will be given 48 hours to respond with snail mail address. You’ll receive the latest issue of Mary Jane magazine…the sweet Christmas issue. When you receive it, let me know so we can appoint a time to, together, settle in with a cuppa and share a tot of Christmas happiness.
This is my first visit to your lovely blog. Thank you for a sweet visit; I certainly enjoyed my time here and consider it well spent.
Merry Christmas and God Bless you.
Connie 🙂
Hi Connie – thank you for visiting with Christmas wishes for God’s blessings now and through out the coming year to you and yours.
Hello dear Sandra, I’ve been trying to find our recent email and think I may have deleted it. Could you please send me the address I wanted again? Thank you so much!
I hope you’re well and making wonderful family plans for Christmas. We have 25 family members coming here this weekend for an afternoon together. Hoping to get a family photograph of us all, for the first time in years.
Love to you,
Dewena
Oh Dewena, it’s been slow going lately, glad you found what you needed and I apologize I didn’t get here in time to help. Merry Christmas to you and yours; God bless you. love and prayers, Sandra
Hope you’re enjoying the season, Sandra.
Amalia
xo
I especially agree with the one about tears being a safety valve, and I love the Revelation scripture. 🙂
Do you mean Mary Jane’s Farm magazine? I am a subscriber and really enjoy it.
Yes, Sue, MJ Magazine…great magazine and the Christmas issue is especially sweet. Speaking of…Merry Christmas!
Love the quote from Billy Graham. The Holidays do come with mixed blessings…praying for those who lost loved ones in your neck of the woods as well as in California.
Thank you, Sandra!
Hi Charlene – yes, the Billy Graham quote is needed to show us everyone struggles but our God is faithful. Be well and careful, Merry Christmas.
Shed a few of those this past week. Some out of nowhere and some in response to some news. God bless you dearly!
Grief is a strange emotion, Ellen. It seems to be over and done with, buried even, and then WHAM! Deja Vu all over again as Yogi Berra said. Keep the faith; we’re one day closer to Home.
C S Lewis is just so sensible!
Yes, and a great end to the tearful post, eh? -smile- Happy Christmas Barbara!
Hello sweet lady!! I love your Sabbath Keeping posts. Always encouraging and uplifting. Sending you a hug from cold Missouri!
Hi Robbin – always preaching to the choir, doncha know? -smile- You’re in my prayers; this Christmas will be raw for you. They all will be but this one especially so. If I knew how to add a heart, I would so consider this a heart <><.
Love you Sandra! I’m praying for you, and I know you are praying for us. Honestly, I take great comfort in knowing for sure that if anybody else forgets to pray for us, you most certainly do not. I know that at least one person in this world is praying for me. That means so much to me Sandra. And I would just like to say to anybody who reads this, Sandra is one of the few people that actually practices what she preaches. The Sandra you see on this blog is Sandra in real life. She is a rare Jewel that is hard to find.
God bless you Sandra, and Sadie, and Sam and all the cats that there’s no way I could remember the names of, and the horses, oh and let’s not forget peewee! Lol
Hi Mandy – You honor me greatly, thank you. Yes, I do remember you/y’all in my prayers…maybe not *exactly* at that time but throughout the day, again and again and again and… I’m surprised God doesn’t tire of hearing from me. I keep the noise level low…no television or radio blaring and that makes it easier to hear God’s whisper. Oh, don’t get me wrong…I’m perfectly willing to watch DVD’s or Brit t.v. but no subscription so the temptation to use it for “background noise” isn’t there.
BTW, John E., Farmville Mennonite church member, is here and everything looks amazing!
Y’all be safe; love and prayers.
Please add my stepdaughter Cathy to your prayer list, diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer after being cancer free for 13 years. Financial stresses and depression – ah life she is a challenge –
Linda, I’m so sorry to hear this news and will add Cathy as well as you and M.
Thumbs up!
easier some days than others, D.
i so appreciate these quotes at this time..
Sherry, you’re in my prayers; I’m so sorry. It never gets easier to say good-bye even though we know we’ll see them again.
The invitation in that last sentence made me want to rig the system!!!
Good quotes! God bottles all of our tears. One day we will cry no more and have joy forever with our awesome God, Jesus.
December is a hard month for me. My dear husband was called home on the 9th, his birthday is the 20th and then we have Christmas. It will be 6 years on the 9th and I miss him every day. I have come a long way from being a fresh widow, but being a widow especially during the holidays is rather daunting.
I started decorating today, ;-). Have some calm instrumental Christmas music playing via you tube. I’ve always enjoyed decorating for Christmas. Memories hung on the tree, pretty colored lights, tinsel, the Nativity, etc. Nativity figurines we bought in Spain while living there when DH was in the US Navy. He made the creche after we got home.
Right now I’ve dough going in the bread machine for pizza crust. The sauce is already made from when I made stuffed shells the other night. Had sauce left over and I’ve not had pizza in awhile.
Happy Christmas holidays dear Sandra ~ Love, hugs & prayers ~ FlowerLady
Dear Rainey – too true, being a widow is hard but during the holidays it’s just plain awful! November marked the 7th year and the grief was a new as it was 7 years ago. I fought against so much darkness but it’s abating now, thank God! I’m still in boxes and won’t decorate much…the Charlie Brown trees, fake…excuse me…faux…pointsettias and a wreath. It takes too much energy (I don’t have to spare) to decorate a lot only to have to remove later. The dough sounds amazing…maybe I’ll make a loaf of bread…sure to warm thrice! Merry Christmas dear heart!
huge smile!
huge smile! (I’m so confused, again, with WP…oh well.)