The Abiding Love

It singeth low in every heart,
   We hear it each and all--
A song of those who answer not,
   However we may call;
They throng the silence of the breast,
   We see them as of yore--
The kind, the brave, the sweet,
   Who walk with us no more.

'Tis hard to take the burden up
   When these have laid it down;
They brightened all the joy of life,
   They softened every frown;
But, Oh, 'tis good to think of them
   When we are troubled sore!
Thanks be to God that such have been.
   Although they are no more.

More homelike seems the vast unknown
   Since they have entered there;
To follow them were not so hard,
   Wherever they may fare;
They cannot be where God is not,
   On any sea or shore;
Whate'er betides, thy love abides,
   Our God, forever more.

     ~ John White Chadwick

LOVE

I LOVE YOU,
Not for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.

I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.

I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.

You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.

     ~ Roy Croft

Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river,
   And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever,
   With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
   All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle:--
   Why not I with thine?

See! the mountains kiss high heaven,
   And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven
   If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
   And the moonbeams kiss the sea:--
What are all these kissings worth,
   If thou kiss not me?

                 ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

I Love You

    I love you for what you are, but I
love you yet more for what you are
going to be.
    I love you not so much for your
realities as for your ideals. I pray for
your desires that they may be great,
rather than for your satisfactions,
which may be hazardously little.
    A satisfied flower is one whose pet-
als are about to fall. The most beauti-
ful rose is one hardly more than a bud
wherein the pangs and ecstasies of de-
sire are working for larger and finer
growth.
    Not always shall you be what you
are now.
    You are going forward toward some-
thing great. I am on the way with you
and therefore I love you.
                          ~ Carl Sandburg

Lord of Power and Love

   Lord of Power and Love! I come, trusting in
Thine almighty strength, and Thine infinite
goodness, to beg from Thee what is wanting in
myself; even that grace which shall help me
such to be, and such to do, as Thou wouldst
have me.

   I will trust Thee, in Whom is everlasting
strength. Be Thou my Helper, to carry me on
beyond my own strength, and to make all that
I think, and speak, and do, acceptable in Thy
sight, through Jesus Christ.  Amen.

   ~ F.B. Meyer, Our Daily Walk; Prayer

One Wish of God

If God would grant me just one wish
   To be enjoyed through life,
I would not ask for wealth or power
   Or comforts, without strife.
I would but ask He touch my heart
   And fill it--for this while--
With just the simple loves I knew
   When I was just a child.

The kind of loves that made each day
   A blessing to behold
And filled my heart with trust and faith
   In Him and human fold,
And this is all that I would ask--
   To make my life sublime:
To live with just this kind of love
   That, once, was yours and mine.

My aging years have proven, well,
   The noblest gift on earth
Is not some gift we take from life
   Of selfish, private worth.
It's what we carry in our hearts
   To share and give away,
Such as the loves we knew--and grew--
   Within our childhood days.

                       ~ Michael Dubina    

The Larger Prayer

At first I prayed for Light:
   Could I but see the way,
How gladly, swiftly would I walk
   To everlasting day!

And next I prayed for Strength:
   That I might tread the road
With firm, unfaltering feet, and win
   The heaven's serene abode.

And then I asked for Faith:
   Could I but trust my God,
I'd live enfolded in His peace,
   Though foes were all abroad.

But now I pray for Love:
   Deep love to God and man,
A living love that will not fail,
   However dark His plan.

And Light and Strength and Faith
   Are opening everywhere;
God only waited for me, till
   I prayed the larger prayer.

                ~ Edna D. Cheney

Three Lessons

There are three lessons I would write--
   Three words as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light,
   Upon the hearts of men.

Have Hope. Though clouds environ now,
   And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadow from thy brow--
   No night but hath its morn.

Have Faith. Where'er thy bark is driven--
   The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth--
Know this: God rules the host of heaven,
   The inhabitants of earth.

Have Love. Not love alone for one,
   But man as man thy brother call;
And scatter like the circling sun
   Thy charities on all.

Thus grave these lessons on thy soul--
   Faith, Hope, and Love--and thou shalt
      find
Strength when life's surges rudest roll,
   Light when thou else wert blind.

~Johann Christopher Friedrich von Schiller

Love Divine, All Love Excelling

In a myriad of miraculous ways
God shapes our lives and changes our days,
Beyond our will or even knowing
God keeps our spirit ever growing. . .
For lights and shadows, sun and rain,
Sadness and gladness, joy and pain,
Combine to make our lives complete
And give us victory through defeat. . .
"Oh, Love Divine, All Love Excelling,"
In troubled hearts You just keep dwelling,
Patiently waiting for a "prodigal son"
To say at last, "Thy will be done."
                              --Helen Steiner Rice

Song of Life

A traveler on a dusty road
Strewed acorns on the lea;
And one took root and sprouted up,
And grew into a tree.
Love sought its shade at evening time,
To breathe its early vows;
And Age was pleased, in heights of noon,
To bask beneath its boughs.
The dormouse loved its dangling twigs,
The birds sweet music bore--
It stood a glory in its place,
A blessing evermore.

A little spring had lost its way
Amid the grass and fern;
A passing stranger scooped a well
Where weary men might turn.
He walled it in, and hung with care
A ladle on the brink;
He thought not of the deed he did,
But judged that Toil might drink.
He passed again; and lo! The well,
By summer never dried,
Had cooled ten thousand parched tongues,
And saved a life beside.

A nameless man, amid the crowd
That thronged the daily mart,
Let fall a word of hope and love,
Unstudied from the heart,
A whisper of the tumult thrown,
A transitory breath,
It raised a brother from the dust,
It saved a soul from death.
O germ! O fount! O word of love!
O thought at random cast!
Ye were but little at the first,
But mighty at the last.

--Charles MacKay

The Love of God

"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38,39

Could we with ink the oceans fill
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above
Would drain the oceans dry,
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Tho' stretched from sky to sky.

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints' and angels' song.

--Words found on the wall of
a prison cell 200 years ago

Exceeding Great and Precious Promises

"Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." --2 Peter 1:2-4

God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through,
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.
God hath not promised we shall not know,
Toil and temptation, trouble and woe.
He hath not told us we shall not bear
Many a burden, many a care.

But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the laborer, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love!

--Annie Johnson Flint