Only in Sleep

Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.

Only in sleep Time is forgotten --
What may have come to them, who can know?
Yet we played last night as long ago,
And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.

The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild --
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child?

Sarah Teasdale

I understood it might even go on for months!

A very big question, the title!

Prayer date for Zimbabwe

Christians across Zimbabwe will be uniting in prayer for their troubled nation in September – and churches across the land are being urged to support them. Precisely, this International Prayer Day is taking place on Sunday 26 September.
During the period, churches in rural and urban Zimbabwe will be gathering to pray for the transformation of their nation, which continues to suffer from the deprivations of poverty.
Earlier this month, the UN said 1.6 million Zimbabweans need food aid despite improvements to crop production over the last year. Some 33 per cent of children under five are chronically malnourished.
Basic infrastructure remains in a poor state due to lack of investment. Around 50 per cent of the 13 million population don’t have access to a source of clean drinking water.
Politically, Zimbabwe remains tense. Next month will see the expiry of the power-sharing agreement between Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change which has been going for a year and has brought a greater measure of stability.
The prayer gatherings on 26 September in Zimbabwe are being organised by the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe and Foundations for Farming (FFF), a partnership working with local churches aiming to equip the hungry with the agricultural skills to feed themselves.

    * Please join the people of Zimbabwe in praying for the transformation of their country, both physically and spiritually.
    * Continue to pray for Zimbabwe’s leaders and for political stability.
    * Give thanks for the work of FFF and the transforming effect it is having on people living in poverty, enabling them to feed themselves and improve other areas of their lives.
    * Praise God that dignity is being restored to Zimbabweans so they no longer have to rely on others to survive.
   

A friend forwarded this to me and what a blessing it's been!!

The cheerful little girl  with bouncy golden curls was almost five. Waiting with her mother at the checkout stand, she saw them, a circle of glistening white pearls in a pink foil box..
"Oh mommy please, Mommy. Can I have them?  Please, Mommy, please?"
Quickly the mother checked the back of the little foil box and then looked back into the pleading blue eyes of her little girl's upturned face.
"A dollar ninety-five. That's almost $2.00. If you really want them, I'll think of some extra chores for you and in no time you can  save enough money to buy them for yourself.. Your
birthday's only a week away and you might get another crisp dollar bill from  Grandma."
As soon as Jenny got home, she emptied her penny bank and counted out 17 pennies. After dinner, she did more than her share of chores and she went to the neighbor and asked Mrs. Mc James if she could pick dandelions for
ten cents.
On her birthday, Grandma
did give her another new dollar bill and at last she had enough money to buy the necklace.
Jenny loved her pearls. They made her feel dressed up and grown up. She wore them everywhere, Sunday
school, kindergarten, even to bed. The only time she took them off was when
she went swimming or had a bubble bath. Mother said if they got wet, they might turn her neck green. Jenny had a very loving daddy and every night when she was ready for bed, he would stop whatever he was doing and come upstairs to read her a story. One night as he finished the story, he asked Jenny, "Do you love me?"
"Oh yes, daddy. You know that I love you."
"Then give me your pearls."
"Oh, daddy, not my pearls. But you can have Princess,
the white horse from my collection, the one with the pink tail. Remember,
daddy? The one you gave
me. She's my very favorite."
"That's okay, Honey, daddy loves you.
Good night." And he brushed her cheek with a kiss.
About a week later, after the story time, Jenny's daddy asked again, "Do you love me?"
"Daddy, you know I love you."
"Then give me your pearls."
"Oh Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have  my baby doll. The brand new one I got for my birthday. She is beautiful and you can have the yellow blanket that matches her sleeper."
"That's okay. Sleep well. God bless you, little one.. Daddy loves you." And as always, he brushed her
cheek with a gentle kiss.
A few nights later when her daddy came in,
Jenny was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed
Indian style. As he came close, he noticed her chin was trembling and one
silent tear rolled down her cheek.
"What is it, Jenny? What's the matter?"
Jenny didn't say anything but lifted her little hand up to her daddy.
And when she opened it, there was her little pearl necklace. With a little quiver, she finally said, "Here daddy, this is for you."
With tears gathering in his own eyes, Jenny's
daddy reached out with one hand to take the dime store necklace, and with the other hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet case with a  strand of genuine pearls and gave them to Jenny. He had them all the time. He was just waiting for her to give up the dime-store stuff so he could give her the genuine treasure.
So it is, with our Heavenly Father. He is waiting for us to give up the cheap things in our lives so that he can give us beautiful treasures.

 

Roadworks on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou highway in Huailai, in north China's Hebei province, have caused a tailback that stretches to a mind-boggling, radiator-testing 60 miles.
The irony is that the roadworks are in place to alleviate congestion caused by thousands of coal trucks thundering into the city.
On the plus side, the giant gridlock has led to brisk business for roadside sellers, who’ve been peddling eggs, water and cigarettes to the frustrated drivers.
But on the downside, the stationary vehicles have made easy pickings for thieves, who’ve been plundering them as their drivers sleep – including siphoning off petrol - according to The Inner Mongolia Morning Post.

FLEE THE PEA

Charles Spurgeon told the story of a preacher who was strolling through a village. As he walked along, he saw a man going down the road with a herd of pigs following in line behind him like sheep following behind a shepherd. This was a very unusual sight, because pigs, ordinarily, are very self-centered, independent creatures that never follow anyone. So the preacher asked, 'Sir, how do you get those pigs to follow you like that?'

'Oh, it's easy,' the farmer said. 'I have a sack full of peas in my pocket; and I just keep walking, occasionally dropping a pea on the road behind me. The pigs follow along wherever I drop a pea and gobble it up, never caring where I'm leading them.'

'That's very clever!' said the pastor. 'By the way; where are you leading them?' And the man said, 'To the butcher's shop, of course.'
The devil often follows the same strategy. The Bible warns us, 'Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour' (1 Peter 5:8; NKJV). But he rarely carries a big sign that says, 'Follow me, so I can devour you.' He knows we wouldn't follow him if he was that obvious. Instead, he works subtly to draw us away from God's good will for our lives.
Just like the farmer in that story, the devil drops little, fleshly temptations in front of us through the elements of our culture: a suggestive movie or television show here; an off-color story or inappropriate joke there; a seductive advertisement or pop song here; a pornographic magazine or web page there. And if we aren't alert, we follow along behind, picking such things up and thinking, 'I can handle this. This isn't so bad. It's just a little pea, after all. It tastes good. Who's it going to hurt? Who's going to care? Who's going to know?' We gobble these tempting little 'peas' up, one after another; never realizing that they're forming a straight line that is leading us down a slippery slope to destruction and loss.
The answer that the Bible gives to such things is summed up in one word:

'Flee' (1 Corinthians 6:18).

As followers of Jesus Christ, let's remember the devil's strategy; and by His help, let's 'FLEE THE PEA'

Contributed.

Big sacrifice if I may add!

LOVE IS ALL ABOUT SACREFICE...

So Far;
The House of Praise has recently acquired the former Gala Bingo Hall in Camberwell. The owners of the former Bingo could not continue to sustain the business and offered the building for sale. The House of Praise, identified a unique of opportunity of utilizing its long and varied experience in community service in impacting the community better than ever and keeping the building alive and useful for the community.

The House Of Praise have already started getting involved in Community activities in the area and would become a hub of goodness if and when the permission is fully granted.

We are requesting your kind support with respect to the urgent bid to secure the approval of planning permission for House of Praise, Camberwell, London. We need a minimum of 35,680 signed petitions to secure this planning permission due to opposition from some quarters. As we have just 5 days to get a decision from the council, please sign the petition through the following link:

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http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/houseofpraisecamberwell/