Joseph Antony Macellaro | Weblog

Advice to those still in school: Maintain a large circle of friends; do not allow your social life to revolve around a select few. Close friendships are vital to our well-being, but it can be damaging to isolate yourself from the world and socialize exclusively with an insular group. If you lose touch with that group, you may be left alone and searching. You may find that because you had concentrated so heavily upon your small group, you had alienated old friends -- good, close friends who were also deserving of your time -- and your family, too. And you're left with nothing at all. Oftentimes your aloneness may be a result of your own mistakes, yet still, it hurts deeply. I am thankful to have a close relationship with God that goes beyond any human friendship -- but many of us do not have this closeness to rely upon. Take my advice, then: Love everyone; hate no one; try to make friends and show love every opportunity you have; do not let old friends slip away; remember that your family will always be around; and live each day to the fullest. Good night, and God bless.

I had won all I could win,

And there was no place I hadn't been,

Still my heart was so needy and so poor;

Then I heard Him gently say:

"Lose it all and find my way,"

So I gave it up and found it all and more.

I lost it all to find everything,

I died a pauper to be born a king;

When I learned how to lose, I found out how to win,

I lost it all to find everything.

I was frantic to survive,

And I was racing to arrive,

And I walked on any standing in my way;

Then I watched my schemes all die,

And I realized that I could find new life

Because the old had died that day.

I lost it all to find everything,

I died a pauper to be born a king;

When I learned how to lose, I found out how to win,

Oh, I lost it all to find everything....

GLORIA GAITHER & WILLIAM J. GAITHER, 1976

In God's sight a person is the most precious of all values. This truth possessed Jesus and never let Him go. He thought it, taught it, and lived it with full devotion. He illustrated it with stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.

Every individual is inherently worthful to the Father -- every child everywhere, of every race, of every condition. Love requires response, and parenthood craves companionship and cooperation. Therefore every human being on this globe is indispensable to God, indispensable in the sense that God can never be fully Himself without loving comradeship, and He can never complete His work without faithful cooperation from every individual everywhere.

Jesus taught and lived the twin truths that man needs God and God needs man, which is to say, parents and child are so bound together that cleavage is disastrous. No idea could be further from the mind of our Lord than the persistent doctrine that God is so transcendent, so holy, so sovereign that He is unknowable, inaccessible, and unresponsive. In the prayer which He taught His disciples, Jesus makes it clear that men should carry all their needs to the Father, even a petition for the satisfaction of daily bodily requirements. Jesus knew men to be frail, sinful, easily corrupted, sometimes monstrously depraved, capable of cruel and atrocious behavior -- but always, always, always a child of God, and, even when a prodigal, indispensable to the lonely and yearning heart of the Father.

KIRBY PAGE

There was a boy who had the faith to move a mountain

And like a child, he would believe without a reason

Without a trace, he disappeared into the void and

I've been searching for that missing person

He used to want to try to walk the straight and narrow

He had a fire and he could feel it in the marrow

It's been a long time and I haven't seen him lately but

I've been searching for that missing person ...

MICHAEL W. SMITH

Something beautiful, something good;

All my confusion He understood;

All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife,

But He made something beautiful of my life.

GLORIA GAITHER & WILLIAM J. GAITHER

Peace on earth

I don't ever remember it

But I know peace

I have it here

In my home

Tonight.

Thanks.

GLORIA GAITHER, 12/24/69

Where can I turn when there's no one else to turn to?

Who can I talk to when nobody wants to listen?

Who do I lean on when there's no foundation stable?

I go to the rock I know that's able, I go to the rock

I go to the rock of my salvation

I go to the stone that the builders rejected

I run to the mountain and the mountain stands by me

When the earth all around me is sinking sand

On Christ the solid rock I stand

When I need a shelter, when I need a friend, I go to the rock.

DOTTIE RAMBO

Someone said that in each life
Some rain is bound to fall
And each one sheds his share of tears
And trouble troubles us all
But the hurt can't hurt forever
And the tears are sure to dry
And it won't rain always
The clouds will soon be gone
The sun that they've been hiding
Has been there all along
And it won't rain always
God's promises are true
The sun will shine in His own good time
And He will see you through.

GLORIA GAITHER & WILLIAM J. GAITHER

Though the skies be gray above me

And I can't see the light of day,

There's a ray breaking through the shadows,

And His smile can't be far away.

Thank God for the promise of springtime,

Once again my heart will sing;

There's a brand new day that is dawning,

Thank God for the promise of spring.

Though the earth seemed bleak and barren

And the seeds lay brown and dead,

Yet the promise of life throbbed within them,

And I knew spring was just ahead.

Thank God for the promise of springtime,

Once again my heart will sing;

There's a brand new day that is dawning,

Thank God for the promise of spring.

GLORIA GAITHER & WILLIAM J. GAITHER