Want to be Happy?
Forgiveness makes freedom yours
And opens those doors

To truth, peace and love
a pathway you will treasure
Joy beyond measure

And all who know this
Know forgiveness comes from love
It can't be ignored

The truth yours at last
That love comes from Christ Jesus
All you do is ask

I will accept thy will to do and be,
  Thy hatred and intolerance of sin,
Thy will at least to love, that burns within
  And thirsteth after Me:
So will I render fruitful, blessing still
  The germs and small beginnings in thy heart,
  Because thy will cleaves to the better part.--
    Alas, I cannot will.

Dost not thou will, poor soul? Yet I receive
  The inner unseen longings of the soul;
  I guide them turning towards Me; I control
    And charm hearts till they grieve:
If thou desire, it yet shall come to pass,
  Though thou but wish indeed to choose My love;
  For I have power in earth and heaven above.--
    I cannot wish, alas!

What, neither choose nor wish to choose? and yet
  I still must strive to win thee and constrain:
  For thee I hung upon the cross in pain,
    How then can I forget?
If thou as yet dost neither love, nor hate,
  Nor choose, nor wish,--resign thyself, be still
  Till I infuse love, hatred, longing, will.--
    I do not deprecate.

"Helen, the radiance of women..." - Homer

Had Helen of Troy been a modern American woman,
she would have checked her email, called her boss,
updated her Facebook page, looked at her calendar,
gone to the gym and talked with her therapist
before running away with Paris.
She would also have consulted her girlfriends
to determine if he was really that into her
and examined a bevy of relationship
self-help books just to make sure.
Certainly, she would have googled him,
had a friend perform a credit check,
and demanded an STD clearance from his doctor.
When the ships and soldiers arrived
to redeem her honor and rescue her,
she would have told them in a huff
that she was an independent woman
quite capable of taking care of herself
and didn't need the help of any men,
before stepping over the dead male bodies
and accepting a free ride home.
Later she would write a wildly popular
estrogen drenched memoir about her trials
filled with spiritual advice, travel notes and recipes.
Paris, of course, would be conveniently dead.
Some stories do not improve when updated.
  - mce

Dark and gloomy days on end
with no apparent hope in sight
fortunes fleeing (lamps alight)
on fairy wings into the night

Out of darkness sinister
with teeth like sharks to minister
that sweeping blow with the sharpest knife
that rips and tears the soul apart
then plunges terror in the heart

Those words from out Golgotha's pits
of pending dangers lurking near

Diagnosis: Cancer

Then just a whisper wafts by here
and sets a message in the ear
"I will never leave you nor forsake you"

THE LORD WILL GET YOU THROUGH ALL THIS