E PLURIBUS UNUM

I've heard it said, and I agree, that suicide is the most selfish act that a human being can ever do. They say that because it is the one thing a person does only for themselves, with little or no regard for their family, friends, and anyone else who loves them. Oh, they almost always leave a note, a letter, or even an entry in a diary, apologizing, and declaring their love for those they are leaving behind, but that love, no matter how sincere, is not enough to override the dispare, and hopelessness that they feel. Suicide is very tragic even with adults, but when an eleven year old commits suicide, I have to look at it from a different perspective, after all this is only a child, and I can't even begin to understand. I read it in the paper, and the details are all there for me to picture over and over in my mind, it does something to me, a feeling of horror that only time can erase. Though I was not there, I hear the neighbor scream, I feel the panic the mother feels as she rushes outside and sees her little girl hanging from a tree branch.

I have three children who are adults now, but they were all eleven at one point in time, and I remember it very well.

Thank God, this very thing has never happened in my family, but I can relate, and anyone who has chrildren should be able to also.

This is the link to the artical; http://www.pjstar.com/phil_luciano/x1816438898/Young-girls-suicide-remains-a-mystery

I live in central Illinois where we normally have Tornadoes every year from March through September. Not as many as they have in Oklahoma, and Kansas, but we do have our share.
This year we had one touch down near here in January. The sirens went off, and we stayed in the basement for an hour waiting for the all clear. We also had thunder and lightning during a snow storm. People who have lived here for more than 60 years have never seen this happen before.
There has been some really strange weather going on in the world these past few years, which I believe are some of the signs leading up the end of this old evil world.
Five years ago, on May 10th, at about 9:00pm, we had a tornado come through our town. It cut a swath through here almost one quarter of a mile wide. Trees that have been standing for over 50yrs were either torn out by the roots, or twisted off at the trunk, including a 2 foot diameter Maple we had in the front yard, uprooted, and deposited on top of our house. All but three houses on our block, were completely destroyed. We had the only livable,(Just barely) house on the block for the first four days after the tornado.
The tree did a lot of the damage, but we had five windows blown in, two of which were basement windows, Where my wife, a grandaughter, and I were at the opposite side,(Thank the Lord!)
The outside wall of the garage was bulged out like a balloon, a two foot piece of 2x4, and a balled up piece of sheet metal came through the garage door, and hit the car. A rather large tree across the street came down on top of my truck, and totaled it out. All the shingles were ripped off the roof, half the soffit was ripped off. The aluminum sideing looked like some one emptied a machine gun into it, with pieces of wood and and metal sticking through it. All this and more, in about 30 seconds. The tornado was moving along the ground at 40 miles per hour, and sounded like a freight train going over us. All tolled, there was $36,000 damage to our house. Amazingly not one picture fell off the wall, and although there were a few serious injuries, not one person in town was killed, praise God.
A few weeks later we went to Radio Shack, and bought one of those weather radios, you know, the ones that come on automatically, and tell you when there is sevier weather in your area.
Well for the past three days, this thing has been going off like crazy day and night. One thunder storm after another, and last night the thunder and the radio kept us awake most of the night. We were supposed to have more today, but so for the radio has been silent, which is a blessing. We should be taking a nap right now, just in case it startes up again tonight. We are afraid to turn it off. I guess we are a little gun shy, after what happened five years ago, and we probably always will be.
Now you know why Autumn is my favorite time of the year, not that we couldn't have a tornado then, but it would be rare.
One other thing I dislike about thunder storms. I'm afraid the lightning will blow up my computer, so I turn it off and unplug it during the storm.

It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80's arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am.



I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would to able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound. On exam, it was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound.

While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor's appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry.



The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife. I inquired as to her health.

He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer's Disease.


As we talked, I asked if she would be upset if he was a bit late.

He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five years now.


I was surprised, and asked him, 'And you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are?'

He smiled as he patted my hand and said,

'She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is.'


I had to hold back tears as he left, I had goose bumps on my arm, and thought,

'That is the kind of love I want in my life.'

True love is neither physical, nor romantic.

True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be.




The happiest people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.


'Life isn't about how to survive the storm,

but how to dance in the rain.'

(Author Unknown)

Every time I am asked to pray, I think of the old deacon who always prayed,
"Lord, prop us up on our leanin' side. "

After hearing him pray that prayer many times, someone asked him why he
prayed that prayer so fervently.

He answered, 'Well sir, you see, it's like this...I got an old barn out back.
It's been there a long time, it's withstood a lot of weather, it's gone through
a lot of storms, and it's stood for many years.

It's still standing. But one day I noticed it was leaning to one side a bit.

So I went and got some pine poles and propped it up on its leaning side so it
wouldn't fall.

Then I got to thinking about that and how much I was like that old barn.
I've been around a long time. I've withstood a lot of life's storms I've
withstood a lot of bad weather in life, I've withstood a lot of hard times,
and I'm still standing too. But I find myself leaning to one side from time
to time, so I like to ask the Lord to prop us up on our leaning side, cause I
figure a lot of us get to leaning, at times.

Sometimes we get to leaning toward anger, leaning toward bitterness,
leani ng toward hatred, leaning toward wrong language, leaning toward a lot of
things that we shouldn't. So we need to pray, 'Lord, prop us up on our
leaning side, so we will stand straight and tall again, to glorify the Lord.

I received this from a friend through email, and thought it was good enough to share with the rest of my friends.




If you stare at this barn for a couple of seconds you will see who will help us stand
straight and tall again.

When the mind is thinking, it is talking to itself. — Plato (427-347 BC), Greek philosopher.

Is this really true? If it is, then there must be one part of your mind that listens to another part that is talking. When I talk to myself (Aloud that is, which I do, on ocasion), I can hear what I'm saying, but I also know in my mind what I'm going to say before I say it, even when I know that no one else is listening, so what's the point? Why do I do it? Is that what I mean when I say, I'm just thinking out loud?

Can we control our own conscious thoughts? I know that most of us cannot control our subconscious thoughts, (Some have said they could). For instance when we are sleeping, and dreaming. But I wonder if it would be possible to have enough self discipline to control your every thought, every waking moment. There is an old saying that goes, "You can't stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can stop them from building a nest in your hair".
I think that if a thought comes into your mind that you don't want there, you must think of another thought to take it's place, but you must have something good in mind beforehand, and you must act quickly, or the thing that takes it's place may be worse than the original thought you were trying get rid of in the first place, and this could start a chain reaction of undesireable thoughts. So I think the key here is to keep that good thought handy, so those birds cannot build that nest in our hair. What do you think? (No pun intended).