Triumph

If you can sing,
When there is no song in your heart;
If you can keep on being loving, lovable, and lovely,
When those who should be loving you are blind;
If you can hold a lifted brow,
Despite the weights your shoulders cannot beat–
There is benediction there
For you to share.

If you can carry on dry-eyed
While your heart is drowning
In a deluge of tears;
If you can keep on going,
When the pain in you is just too great,
And your soul is shaken with hopeless anguish,
And your suffering, ache-filled body wants to slump;
If you can keep on going–
And keep on going…

When nerves and blood and muscle scream and sob
With the injustice and unholy ways
Of those who should be warm and just, but can’t be,
Because the abysmal holds for them more lure
Than the celestial–
Why, God?

But, if you can tilt your cheeks, sunward,
Keeping your eyes filled with spiritual light and message,
And coax a skip of childlike rhythm
Into your lagging walk–
And lift your best foot forward,
As though you had no care–
There is benediction there
For you to share.

- Virginia Stillman

David Archuleta and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir - Silent Night

Good Advice from Dr. Laura

Although I haven't agreed with everything she says, I have found Laura Schlessinger to be a fount of good advice for dealing with the struggles of life and choices. Here are some of her good quotes:

1. Don't worry so much about your self-esteem. Worry more about your character. Integrity is its own reward.

2. This is all you have. This is not a dry run. This is your life. If you want to fritter it away with your fears, then you will fritter it away, but you won't get it back later.

3. Values are principles and ideas that bring meaning to the seemingly mundane experience of life. A meaningful life that ultimately brings happiness and pride requires you to respond to temptations as well as challenges with honor, dignity, and courage.

4. Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

5. The reward for doing right is mostly an internal phenomenon: self-respect, dignity, integrity, and self-esteem.

6. Make decisions from the strong part of you, not the weak.

7. Never do anything that you aren't prepared to face the true consequences of.

8. People with integrity do what they say they are going to do. Others have excuses.

9. Situations reveal who we are, they don't create who we are.

10.The people and circumstances around me do not MAKE me what I am, they REVEAL who I am.

11. We can be negative and cynical or we can be charged and hot wired to find a way through it, over it, around it under it.

If You Should Die

Here's a poem I wrote a few years back: 

If you should die, a part of me would die also. 

Your life gives meaning and inspiration to mine. 

Your love has filled my heart and gives me joy. 

If you should leave, you would take with you much 

Of what makes my life full. 

Although I know that your journey would take you 

To a wonderful place where we would meet again, 

I would sorrow that you went there before and without me, 

And that I would have to continue on living life without you. 

Your strength has bolstered me through many challenges 

And has made facing life an easier task. 

Without you by my side, life would be more difficult. 

Yet, somehow, I know your strength would still come to me 

Through heavenly channels. 

I would greatly miss being able to see you, hear you, 

And feel the comfort of your embrace. 

I would miss your laughter, your friendship, your love. 

But these, in memory, I would hold on to until 

The day we meet again. 

  by Ken R. Young