Virtually all children....

....go through growth spurts. Sometimes, they can seemingly put on a few inches in just a few weeks. Adults, if they are lucky, don't increase their size. (Or if they do, it happens horizontally rather than vertically.) Still, though, no matter how old we are, we never lose the ability to increase our understanding. Ideas about life that once used to fit us perfectly become too tight and constricting.

We have to shed our old beliefs and opinions so that we gain greater insight. If you are going through such a phase now; be glad of it.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. 

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

So often it's just....

.....a matter of degree, isn't it? One mouthful may be tantalising, two may be satisfying, three could be overdoing it and four, would be a sure-fire recipe for indigestion. We cannot always see how to draw the line... or where. Often, it seems, the only way to find out when enough is enough, is to carry on until we've had too much, and then try to edge back a bit.

That's an easier process than many of us fear. We should never assume that a passing sense of discomfort will become a permanent disability.

We are afraid of the enormity of the possible.  (Emile M Cioran)

Experience is....

.....the greatest teacher, and when the lesson that needs to be learned is important enough, it hardly matters whether that experience is positive or negative. When we look back on all the events that seem to confirm our wisdom, we have to wonder whether these have helped us or just conditioned us to remain upon a path that is so straight and narrow that it offers no scope for discovery.

Through looking at what has gone wrong in the past, you stand the best chance of making things right in the future.

Our best thoughts come from others   (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Does every closet....

....hide a skeleton? Does every statement disguise a hidden agenda? There are times when we can look around at the people in our world and wonder just what it is that they are trying to cover up. 

But then, we have all got private thoughts that we would rather not share. These become problematic only when we pretend otherwise and try to persuade ourselves that something is true, when deep down we know that it isn't

The doer alone, learneth.  (Friedrich Nietzsche)

Everything looks....

....difficult when you don't know what it involves. Knowledge isn't just power, it is relief, even peace of mind! Now, I know what you are thinking. 'What if you happen to know for a fact that something really is as difficult as it looks?' Well, even so, at least you know what you are dealing with. The unknown is always more nerve-racking than the known. And the known, if it is really known, is never without hope.

There is a world of difference between the difficult and the impossible and that's all you need to remember.

One fails forward towards success  (Charles Kettering)

Another Easter Reflection....

Some of you may have heard of this –

At the time of the Battle of Waterloo there was a man at a signalling post in Winchester Cathedral anxiously
awaiting the signal as to whether or not we had won the war.  As the lighted signal began to shine, a fog came down. The watchman read the signal which said, “England defeated”.  He signalled this news to other watchmen. This message spread along the countryside, and Britain began to despair of this news.  Then the fog lifted, and the
watchman discovered the true signal said, “England defeated the enemy”.  The despair, like the fog, lifted because England had won!

On Good Friday it seemed the message was "Christ defeated".  But three days later the fog lifts and we discover that the message had not been received in full.  The resurrection reverses what we initially thought and declares "Christ defeated the enemy”.

An Easter Reflection...

Some time ago I heard a story.  One of those stories that you can’t easily verify, but know that it’s worth remembering -

A young boy named Jonathan, who had quite severe learning difficulties,
loved going to Sunday School and listening to the passages and the hymns we know so well. Unfortunately, although the other children didn’t mock him, neither did they include him in many of the activities.

One week before Easter, the assistant gave all of the children plastic eggs and asked them to go home and fill the eggs with something that represented Easter. The next week all of the children gave their eggs and the assistant opened them one by one and they talked about how each thing
represented Easter. One had a flower petal, another had a leaf and so on - all representing spring and new life.

The assistant then came to an empty egg. Assuming it was Jonathan’s, she put it aside thinking he must not have understood what she asked him to do. Jonathan became a little agitated and asked. “Why won’t you talk about my egg?” She said, “But Jonathan, your
egg is empty.” To which he replied, “So was the tomb”.

Jonathan became accepted by all the other children that day.