Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul Daily Inspirations (Chicken Soup for the Soul) (44 page)

O
CTOBER
19

I
n times of great trial, we often find ourselves not knowing what to do, or which way to turn. In the midst of confusion, it’s easy to block out the needs of those around us, choosing to inwardly focus on our own misery. However, reaching out to others helps us regain balance in our lives. In redirecting our energy toward easing another’s burdens, our own burdens not only become lighter, but we find reasons to rejoice . . . newly blessed by all we’ve been given. In walking a mile in the other man’s shoes, we have an opportunity to gain new appreciation for the perfect fit of our own.

Michelle Close-Mills

We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything.

Blaise Pascal

Footnotes for Life

O
CTOBER
20

T
he fragility or strength of the motivating force behind your will determines the success of dreams and the distance they travel. As we live our lives we run into successes or failures; our choosing makes the difference in the two.

Ideas originate in the hallowed hallways of the mind, from feelings and beliefs, and are spurred on into the heart where they meet up with will and determination, or die from apprehension. It is when the soul grabs hold of dreams and refuses to release them until they see fruition, that a person truly knows the joy that imaginings can bring.

Betty King

What I can imagine, I can see. What I can see, I can grab hold of, what I can grab hold of is mine.

Betty King

Footnotes for Life

O
CTOBER
21

R
ecovery takes time. If I am impatient with my healing I cheat myself of the necessary time it takes to go through my own grief. To pretend that I have never experienced real despair is to sabotage myself, to become complicit in emotional dishonesty. I know I have the strength I need to get through my pain and part of my strength is not ignoring my emotions. I entrust myself to God with a sure knowledge that my healing is now taking place.

Rokelle Lerner

Health is not a condition of matter, but of mind.

Mary Baker Eddy

Footnotes for Life

O
CTOBER
22

I
n our culture, we emphasize the body, exalt the intellect and worship talent. Yet, the flesh is just the package, the wrapping paper for the true prize–our spirit. Life leaves the bows and ribbons a bit frayed and the brightly colored paper fades with time, but through difficulties our spirit grows. The spirit shapes our true destiny. It is the spirit that makes each one of us intrinsically priceless and eternally precious.

Renee Hixson

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.

Kahlil Gibran

Footnotes for Life

O
CTOBER
23

I
know that I can do anything I need to do with God’s help. When I feel alone or shaken up, I can ask for help within myself and know that it is there. Each of us has to learn our own lessons, that is what we are here to do.We can’t learn anyone else’s lessons for them and learning our own is difficult enough. To plow through my own psyche and face the insecurity and wounds that are there is all that I can handle. To try to live other people’s lives for them is to separate myself from God because my first access to God is through and within me.

Tian Dayton

One on God’s side is a majority.

Wendell Phillips

Footnotes for Life

O
CTOBER
24

I
t feels wonderful to love someone else and to have someone love you, but there’s nothing more wonderful than loving who you are. Allow yourself to see your inner beauty, your strengths and how much you have to offer this world. You are special and unique; you brighten the lives of others. Take the energy and passion you put into loving others, and direct it to loving who you are.

Cori Sachais Swidorsky

I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Footnotes for Life

O
CTOBER
25

I
have a little booklet my grandfather wrote. He speaks to me through words on a yellowed page and I hear the voice of a man I have never met. Sometimes I think he left the stories especially for me, although for him I was only a prediction. I come from a long line of storytellers–their wares passed from one generation to the next in the fashion of heirlooms. Like any inheritance the value lies with the recipient. I hold the stories passed to me close to my heart. My mother used to tell me that I was the promise her father made–the baby sent to her after his passing. At fifty years old I still love that story.

Elva Stoelers

Your scars are evidence that you have healed.

Dr. Julia Boyd

Footnotes for Life