Promising Good Morning Quotes

Edward spoke in a voice so peaceful and gentle that it made the words strangely more threatening. "I'm not going to kill you now, because it would upset Bella." "Hmph," I grumbled. Edward turned slightly to throw me a quick smile. His face was still calm. "It would bother you in the morning," he said, brushing his fingers across my cheek. The he turned back to Jacob. "But if you ever bring her back damaged again--and I don't care whose fault it is; I don't care if she merely trips, or if a meteor falls out of the sky and hits her in the head--if you return her to me in less than the perfect condition that I left her in, you will be running with three legs. Do you understand that, mongrel?" Jacob rolled his eyes. "who's going back?" I muttered Edward continued as if he hadn't heard me. "And if you ever kiss her again, I wiil break your jaw for her," he promised, his voice still gentle and velvet deadly. "What if she wants me to?" Jacob drawled, arrogant. "Hah!" I snorted. "If that's what she wants, then I won't object." Edward shrugged, untroubled. "You might want to wait for her to say it, rather than trust your interpretation of body language-but it's your face." Jacob grinned. "You wish," I grumbled. "Yes, he does," Edward murmured. "Well, if you're done rummaging through my head," Jacob said with a think edge of annoyance, "why don't you go take care of her hand?" "One more thing," Edward said slowly. "I'll be fighting for her, too. You should know that. I'm not taking anything for granted, and I'll be fighting twice as hard as you will." "Good," Jacob growled. "it's no fun beating someone who forfeits." She is mine." Edward's low voice was suddenly dark, not as composed as before, "i did't say I would fight fair." "Neither did I." "Best of luck." Jacob nodded. "Yes, may the best man win." "That sounds about right...pup.

promise me something, one very last thing: once your good-bye is perfect, you have to leave me and not look back. Live your life. It’s an awful thing to miss someone who’s still here.

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR DESTINY Stand your ground. . . . Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers. —EPHESIANS 6:14–18, NLT Do not be a victim. Call the shots and change your destiny. Be proactive and decisive as you declare God’s Word over your life. God has given you the promise that whatsoever you declare in Jesus’s name will be done (John 14:13–14), so you can be all He intended you to be on the earth—a shining example of God’s goodness and love.

It might seem to you that living in the woods on a riverbank would remove you from the modern world. But not if the river is navigable, as ours is. On pretty weekends in the summer, this riverbank is the very verge of the modern world. It is a seat in the front row, you might say. On those weekends, the river is disquieted from morning to night by people resting from their work. This resting involves traveling at great speed, first on the road and then on the river. The people are in an emergency to relax. They long for the peace and quiet of the great outdoors. Their eyes are hungry for the scenes of nature. They go very fast in their boats. They stir the river like a spoon in a cup of coffee. They play their radios loud enough to hear above the noise of their motors. They look neither left nor right. They don't slow down for - or maybe even see - an old man in a rowboat raising his lines... I watch and I wonder and I think. I think of the old slavery, and of the way The Economy has now improved upon it. The new slavery has improved upon the old by giving the new slaves the illusion that they are free. The Economy does not take people's freedom by force, which would be against its principles, for it is very humane. It buys their freedom, pays for it, and then persuades its money back again with shoddy goods and the promise of freedom.

One of the secrets of life is to find joy in the journey." But Grandma, you weren't on *this* journey. It was just crazy--" Grandma held up her hand. "You have six brothers. You got to spend a whole day in the car with them. You're all healthy, well fed, happy... Someday, when you're a little older, I'll bet you'd give anything to be back in that van of yours with all of your brothers, smelly diapers and all." I mulled that over. Well what about Dad?" I pointed out. "He didn't find any joy in the journey. He was yelling at trees." Grandma sat back, "Your father and mother are masters at finding joy in the journey." I didn't understand. Grandma continued, "Do you really think your parents would have had seven kids if they couldn't find joy in the journey?... I would be willing to wager that he'll be laughing about this trip on Monday morning with his friends at work." Grandma took my hands into hers. "There are a lot of people in this life that will try to convince you that they're selling something that will bring you joy. The simple fact of the matter is that *things* don't bring you joy. You have to find joy in life experience. And if you take along somebody you love, then that journey is going to be all the more enjoyable. I can promise you right now that both good and bad things are going to happen to you in your life. Good and bad things happen to everybody. Some people are good at finding the miserable things in life, and some are good at finding the joy. No matter what happens to you, what you remember is up to you.

Your a member? I think at him incredulously. He blinks in surprise that I am talking to him via brain. That it could be that easy, between us, when it's so hard with everyone else. Yes. As of his morning. And how does one become a member exactly? You make a promise to serve the light. To fight for the side of good. I thought they said they don't fight. He gives me the mental equivalent of a shrug. And that's what you did this morning? Yes, he says unwaveringly. I took an oath. And so the revelations keep on coming.

Noahnoah, promise me something, one very last thing: once your good-bye is perfect, you have to leave me and not look back. Live your life. It’s an awful thing to miss someone who’s still here.

Here’s what I urge of you if you did not receive a good morning text today: Don’t forget about what makes you incredible. Don’t let your own intricacies slide. Because the loveable parts of you are not gone –I absolutely promise you that much.

There's something very comforting about the ritual of jam-making. It speaks of cellars filled with preserves; of neat rows of jars on pantry shelves. It speaks of winter mornings and bowls of chocolat au lait, with thick slices of good fresh bread and last year's peach jam, like a promise of sunshine at the darkest point of the year. It speaks of four stone walls, a roof, and of seasons that turn in the same place, in the same way, year after year, with sweet familiarity. It is the taste of home.

Those were the good mornings, when the sun was hot and the air was quick and promising, when the Real Business seemed right on the verge of happening and I felt that if I went just a little faster I might overtake that bright and fleeting thing that was always just ahead.

She had tried her best to be a good mother---which to her meant a predictable mother. She had promised herself that her children would never have to worry what sort of mood she was in; they would never peek into her bedroom in the morning to see how their day was going to go. She was the only woman she knew whose prime objective was to be taken for granted.

boy’s and says: “Noahnoah, promise me something, one very last thing: once your good-bye is perfect, you have to leave me and not look back. Live your life. It’s an awful thing to miss someone who’s still here.

For most of my life, I would have automatically said that I would opt for conscientious objector status, and in general, I still would. But the spirit of the question is would I ever, and there are instances where I might. If immediate intervention would have circumvented the genocide in Rwanda or stopped the Janjaweed in Darfur, would I choose pacifism? Of course not. Scott Simon, the reporter for National Public Radio and a committed lifelong Quaker, has written that it took looking into mass graves in former Yugoslavia to convince him that force is sometimes the only option to deter our species' murderous impulses. While we're on the subject of the horrors of war, and humanity's most poisonous and least charitable attributes, let me not forget to mention Barbara Bush (that would be former First Lady and presidential mother as opposed to W's liquor-swilling, Girl Gone Wild, human ashtray of a daughter. I'm sorry, that's not fair. I've no idea if she smokes.) When the administration censored images of the flag-draped coffins of the young men and women being killed in Iraq - purportedly to respect "the privacy of the families" and not to minimize and cover up the true nature and consequences of the war - the family matriarch expressed her support for what was ultimately her son's decision by saying on Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? I mean it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" Mrs. Bush is not getting any younger. When she eventually ceases to walk among us we will undoubtedly see photographs of her flag-draped coffin. Whatever obituaries that run will admiringly mention those wizened, dynastic loins of hers and praise her staunch refusal to color her hair or glamorize her image. But will they remember this particular statement of hers, this "Let them eat cake" for the twenty-first century? Unlikely, since it received far too little play and definitely insufficient outrage when she said it. So let us promise herewith to never forget her callous disregard for other parents' children while her own son was sending them to make the ultimate sacrifice, while asking of the rest of us little more than to promise to go shopping. Commit the quote to memory and say it whenever her name comes up. Remind others how she lacked even the bare minimum of human integrity, the most basic requirement of decency that says if you support a war, you should be willing, if not to join those nineteen-year-olds yourself, then at least, at the very least, to acknowledge that said war was actually going on. Stupid fucking cow.

Chloe kept her expression bland. He looked immensely pleased with himself this morning, and there was no way she was letting him know she'd had even one nocturnal thought about him. "I can't remember," she said, blinking guilelessly. "In fact, I slept so deeply I don't think I dreamt at all." "Indeed," he murmured. When he moved forward, she nearly jumped out of her skin, but he simply reached behind her and pulled the door to her bedchamber shut. Then backed her against it. "Hey," she snapped. "I sought but to give you a good morrow kiss, lass. 'Tis a Scots custom." She craned her neck, scowling up at him, and gave him a look that said Yeah, right, nice try. "A wee one. No tongue. I promise," he said, his lips curving faintly. "You never give up, do you?" "I never will, sweet. Doona you know that by now?" Oooh, that was beginning to take on shades of her dream. And he'd called her "sweet," a little endearment. She damped her mouth shut and shook her head.

Dear Jim." The writing grew suddenly blurred and misty. And she had lost him again--had lost him again! At the sight of the familiar childish nickname all the hopelessness of her bereavement came over her afresh, and she put out her hands in blind desperation, as though the weight of the earth-clods that lay above him were pressing on her heart. Presently she took up the paper again and went on reading: "I am to be shot at sunrise to-morrow. So if I am to keep at all my promise to tell you everything, I must keep it now. But, after all, there is not much need of explanations between you and me. We always understood each other without many words, even when we were little things. "And so, you see, my dear, you had no need to break your heart over that old story of the blow. It was a hard hit, of course; but I have had plenty of others as hard, and yet I have managed to get over them,--even to pay back a few of them,--and here I am still, like the mackerel in our nursery-book (I forget its name), 'Alive and kicking, oh!' This is my last kick, though; and then, tomorrow morning, and--'Finita la Commedia!' You and I will translate that: 'The variety show is over'; and will give thanks to the gods that they have had, at least, so much mercy on us. It is not much, but it is something; and for this and all other blessings may we be truly thankful! "About that same tomorrow morning, I want both you and Martini to understand clearly that I am quite happy and satisfied, and could ask no better thing of Fate. Tell that to Martini as a message from me; he is a good fellow and a good comrade, and he will understand. You see, dear, I know that the stick-in-the-mud people are doing us a good turn and themselves a bad one by going back to secret trials and executions so soon, and I know that if you who are left stand together steadily and hit hard, you will see great things. As for me, I shall go out into the courtyard with as light a heart as any child starting home for the holidays. I have done my share of the work, and this death-sentence is the proof that I have done it thoroughly. They kill me because they are afraid of me; and what more can any man's heart desire? "It desires just one thing more, though. A man who is going to die has a right to a personal fancy, and mine is that you should see why I have always been such a sulky brute to you, and so slow to forget old scores. Of course, though, you understand why, and I tell you only for the pleasure of writing the words. I loved you, Gemma, when you were an ugly little girl in a gingham frock, with a scratchy tucker and your hair in a pig-tail down your back; and I love you still. Do you remember that day when I kissed your hand, and when you so piteously begged me 'never to do that again'? It was a scoundrelly trick to play, I know; but you must forgive that; and now I kiss the paper where I have written your name. So I have kissed you twice, and both times without your consent. "That is all. Good-bye, my dear" Then am I A happy fly, If I live Or if I die

For five years I didn't think it was possible to be this happy. But then he forgot all those promises he made. He forgot why he loved me. He simply stopped loving me. And this is how he did it: He stopped talking to me unless I spoke to him. He stopped holding my hand. He stopped kissing me good night. He stopped kissing me good morning. He stopped kissing me. He stopped smiling at me. He stopped laughing. He stopped bathing and showering with me. He stopped wanting me. He started swearing at me. He started lying to me. He started cheating on me. He hurt me. And then he told me he was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce. Oh, I forgot. He said he was sorry. I wanted to blow his fucking brains out.

I remember that morning vividly my eyes crusted from crying Staring across from you your cheeks smudged with campfire ash. We smiled weakly at each other, and I told myself we were good. I promised I would stop drinking so much. You believed me. I looked over the boat at my reflection in the water. I looked kind of happy for someone who was drowning.

Disasterology The Badger is the thirteenth astrological sign. My sign. The one the other signs evicted: unanimously. So what? ! Think I want to read about my future in the newspaper next to the comics? My third grade teacher told me I had no future. I run through snow and turn around just to make sure I’ve got a past. My life’s a chandelier dropped from an airplane. I graduated first in my class from alibi school. There ought to be a healthy family cage at the zoo, or an open field, where I can lose my mother as many times as I need. When I get bored, I call the cops, tell them there’s a pervert peeking in my window! then I slip on a flimsy nightgown, go outside, press my face against the glass and wait… This makes me proud to be an American where drunk drivers ought to wear necklaces made from the spines of children they’ve run over. I remember my face being invented through a windshield. All the wounds stitched with horsehair So the scars galloped across my forehead. I remember the hymns cherubs sang in my bloodstream. The way even my shadow ached when the chubby infants stopped. I remember wishing I could be boiled like water and made pure again. Desire so real it could be outlined in chalk. My eyes were the color of palm trees in a hurricane. I’d wake up and my id would start the day without me. Somewhere a junkie fixes the hole in his arm and a racing car zips around my halo. A good God is hard to find. Each morning I look in the mirror and say promise me something don’t do the things I’ve done.

He went back to his first morning in Oxford: climbing a sunny hill with Ramy, picnic basket in hand. Elderflower cordial. Warm brioche, sharp cheese, a chocolate tart for dessert. The air that day smelled like a promise, all of Oxford shone like an illumination, and he was falling in love. 'It's so odd,' Robin said. Back then they'd already passed the point of honesty; they spoke to one another unfiltered, unafraid of the consequences. 'It's like I've known you forever.' 'Me too,' Ramy said. 'And that makes no sense,' said Robin, drunk already, though there was no alcohol in the cordial. 'Because I've known you for less than a day, and yet...' 'I think,' said Ramy, 'its' because when I speak, you listen.' 'Because you are fascinating.' 'Because you're a good translator.' Ramy leaned back on his elbows. 'That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.

If each person in the room promises that in the twenty-four hours beginning the very next day she or he will do at least one outrageous thing in the name of simple justice, then I promise I will, too. It doesn't matter whether the act is as small as saying, "Pick yourself up" (a major step for those of us who have been our family's servants) or as large as calling for a strike. The point is that, if each of us does as promised, we can be pretty sure of two results. First, the world one day later won't be quite the same. Second, we will have such a good time doing it that we will never again get up in the morning saying, "WILL I do anything outrageous?" but only "WHAT outrageous act will I do today

When the dawn is still in the dark, the God whispers with new promises. Listen to those and fulfill your dreams.

[Robert's eulogy at his brother, Ebon C. Ingersoll's grave. Even the great orator Robert Ingersoll was choked up with tears at the memory of his beloved brother] The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower. Dear Friends: I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me. The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west. He had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point; but, being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust. Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship. For whether in mid sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights, and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning, of the grander day. He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged, and lovingly gave alms. With loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts. He was a worshipper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: 'For Justice all place a temple, and all season, summer!' He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers. Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, 'I am better now.' Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. And now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. Speech cannot contain our love. There was, there is, no gentler, stronger, manlier man.

Every one of us has times when we need to know things will get better. Moroni spoke of it in the Book of Mormon as “hope for a better world.” (Ether 12:4) For emotional health and spiritual stamina, everyone needs to be able to look forward to some respite, to something pleasant and renewing and hopeful, whether that blessing be near at hand or still some distance ahead. It is enough just to know we can get there, that however measured or far away, there is the promise of “good things to come.” . . . [T]his is precisely what the gospel of Jesus Christ offers us . . . There is help. There is happiness. There really is light at the end of the tunnel. It is the Light of the World, the Bright and Morning Star, the “light that is endless, that can never be darkened.” (see John 8:12; Rev 22:16; Mosiah 16:9) It is the very Son of God Himself. . . . To any who may be struggling to see that light and find that hope, I say: Hold on. Keep trying. God loves you. Things will improve. Christ comes to you in His “more excellent ministry” with a future of “better promises.

We kiss good-bye. It's our typical morning good-bye kiss. A quick peck. A well-intentioned habit. I look down and notice Lucy's round, blue eyes paying close attention. I flash to studying my own parents kissing when I was little... I promised myself that when I got married someday, I would have kisses that meant something. Kisses that would make me weak in the knees. Kisses that would embarrass the kids. Kisses like Han Solo kissing Princess Leia... Now I get it. we aren't living in some George Lucas blockbuster adventure. Our morning kiss good-bye isn't romantic, and it certainly isn't sexual. It's a routine kiss, but I'm glad we do it. It does mean something. It's enough. And it's all we have time for.

We are taught in this culture that if we can grasp enough pleasurable experiences quickly, one after another, our life will be happy. By following a good game of tennis with a delicious dinner, a fine movie, then wonderful sex and sleep, a good morning jog, a fine hour of meditation, an excellent breakfast, and off to an exciting morning of work, over and over, our happiness will last. Our driven society is masterful at perpetuating this ruse. But will this satisfy the heart?

When I complain about the bandages she says: 'I promise you that when you take them off you'll be just as you were before.' And it is true. When she takes them off there is not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease. And five weeks afterwards there I am, with not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease. And there he is, lying with a ticket tied around his wrist because he died in a hospital. And there I am looking down at him, without one line, without one wrinkle, without one crease...

sweetness on the tongue and a promise of scent on the night air. It was sensual in the best meaning of that word, saturating every sense at once, so that the flesh was known, finally, as a thing of such goodness that man blessed his Creator from morning to night for having made him. Here in this medieval town where once an extraordinary little fellow had burst forth with songs to God, as a passionate lover speaks to his bride, here the restoration of man to his own true home was no longer the dream of saints. It was the wedding feast. It was a word made flesh.

Baudelaire" When I fall asleep, and even during sleep, I hear, quite distinctly, voices speaking Whole phrases, commonplace and trivial, Having no relation to my affairs. Dear Mother, is any time left to us In which to be happy? My debts are immense. My bank account is subject to the court’s judgment. I know nothing. I cannot know anything. I have lost the ability to make an effort. But now as before my love for you increases. You are always armed to stone me, always: It is true. It dates from childhood. For the first time in my long life I am almost happy. The book, almost finished, Almost seems good. It will endure, a monument To my obsessions, my hatred, my disgust. Debts and inquietude persist and weaken me. Satan glides before me, saying sweetly: “Rest for a day! You can rest and play today. Tonight you will work.” When night comes, My mind, terrified by the arrears, Bored by sadness, paralyzed by impotence, Promises: “Tomorrow: I will tomorrow.” Tomorrow the same comedy enacts itself With the same resolution, the same weakness. I am sick of this life of furnished rooms. I am sick of having colds and headaches: You know my strange life. Every day brings Its quota of wrath. You little know A poet’s life, dear Mother: I must write poems, The most fatiguing of occupations. I am sad this morning. Do not reproach me. I write from a café near the post office, Amid the click of billiard balls, the clatter of dishes, The pounding of my heart. I have been asked to write “A History of Caricature.” I have been asked to write “A History of Sculpture.” Shall I write a history Of the caricatures of the sculptures of you in my heart? Although it costs you countless agony, Although you cannot believe it necessary, And doubt that the sum is accurate, Please send me money enough for at least three weeks.

The answer to the prayer is certain, if it be sincerely offered through Jesus. The Lord's character assures us that He will not leave His people; His relationship as Father and Husband guarantee us His aid; His gift of Jesus is a pledge of every good thing; and His sure promise stands, "Fear not, I WILL HELP THEE.

You see that God deems it right to take from me any claim to merit for what you call my devotion to you. I have promised to remain forever with you, and now I could not break my promise if I would. The treasure will be no more mine than yours, and neither of us will quit this prison. But my real treasure is not that, my dear friend, which awaits me beneath the somber rocks of Monte Cristo, it is your presence, our living together five or six hours a day, in spite of our jailers; it is the rays of intelligence you have elicited from my brain, the languages you have implanted in my memory, and which have taken root there with all of their philological ramifications. These different sciences that you have made so easy to me by the depth of the knowledge you possess of them, and the clearness of the principles to which you have reduced them – this is my treasure, my beloved friend, and with this you have made me rich and happy. Believe me, and take comfort, this is better for me than tons of gold and cases of diamonds, even were they not as problematical as the clouds we see in the morning floating over the sea, which we take for terra firma, and which evaporate and vanish as we draw near to them. To have you as long as possible near me, to hear your eloquent speech, -- which embellishes my mind, strengthens my soul, and makes my whole frame capable of great and terrible things, if I should ever be free, -- so fills my whole existence, that the despair to which I was just on the point of yielding when I knew you, has no longer any hold over me; this – this is my fortune – not chimerical, but actual. I owe you my real good, my present happiness; and all the sovereigns of the earth, even Caesar Borgia himself, could not deprive me of this.

seemed like she could hold on to the good mood if everyone just stayed in their place. She needed the good mood, the way you need sleep after an all-nighter, the way you daydream of throwing yourself into bed. Every day she woke up and swore she wouldn’t let the farm weigh her down, wouldn’t let the ruination of it (three years she was behind in the loan, three years and no way out) turn her into the kind of woman she hated: mirthless, pinched, unable to enjoy anything. Every morning she’d crick herself down onto the flimsy rug by her bed and pray, but it was actually a promise: Today I won’t yell, I won’t cry, I won’t clench up into a ball like I am waiting for a blow to level me. I will enjoy today. She might make it to lunch before she went sour.

The whole of Christ’s life was a continual passion; others die martyrs, but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha, where he was crucified, even in Bethlehem, where he was born; for to his tenderness then the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after, and the manger as uneasy at first as the cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas Day and his Good Friday are but the evening and the morning of one

Chang-bo took to his bed, or rather to the quilts on the floor that was all they had left. His legs swelled up like balloons with what Mrs. Song had come to recognize as edema — fluid retention brought on by starvation. He talked incessantly about food. He spoke of the tofu soups his mother made him as a child and an unusually delicious meal of steamed crab with ginger that Mrs. Song had cooked for him when they were newlyweds. He had an uncanny ability to remember details of dishes she had cooked decades earlier. He was sweetly sentimental, even romantic, when he spoke about their meals together. He would take her hand in his own, his eyes wet and cloudy with the mist of his memories. “Come, darling. Let’s go to a good restaurant and order a nice bottle of wine,” he told his wife one morning when they were stirring on the blankets. They hadn’t eaten in three days. Mrs. Song looked at her husband with alarm, worried that he was hallucinating. She ran out the door to the market, moving fast and forgetting all about the pain in her back. She was determined to steal, beg — whatever it took — to get some food for her husband. She spotted her older sister selling noodles. Her sister wasn’t faring well — her skin was flaked just like Chang-bo’s from malnutrition — so Mrs. Song had resisted asking her for help, but now she was desperate, and of course, her sister couldn’t refuse. “I’ll pay you back,” Mrs. Song promised as she ran back home, the adrenaline pumping her legs. Chang-bo was curled up on his side under the blanket. Mrs. Song called his name. When he didn’t respond, she went to turn him over — it wasn’t diffcult now that he had lost so much weight, but his legs and arms were stiff and got in the way. Mrs. Song pounded and pounded on his chest, screaming for help even as she knew it was too late.

They were living to themselves: self, with its hopes, and promises, and dreams, still had hold of them; but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their hearts; they has asked to be dead to the world, and He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like unto Him, and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by "as a refiner of silver," till they should reflect His image; they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it out to them, it lacerated their hands. They had asked they knew not what, nor how; but He had taken them at their word, and granted them all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them an awe and fear, as Jacob at Bethel, or Eliphaz in the night visions, or as the apostles when they thought they had seen the spirit, and knew not that it was Jesus. They could almost pray Him to depart from them, or to hide His awefulness. They found it easier to obey than to suffer--to do than to give up--to bear the cross than to hang upon it: but they cannot go back, for they have come too near the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too deeply within them. He is fulfilling to them his promise, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me. But now, at last, their turn is come. Before, they had only heard of the mystery, but now they feel it. He has fastened on them His look of love, as He did on Mary and Peter, and they cannot but choose to follow. Little by little, from time to time, by flitting gleams the mystery of His cross shines upon them. They behold Him lifted up--they gaze upon the glory which rays forth from the wound of His holy passion; and as they gaze, they advance, and are changed into His likeness, and His name shines out through them, for he dwells in them. They live alone with Him above, in unspeakable fellowship; willing to lack what others own, and to be unlike all, so that they are only like him. "Such are they in all ages who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Had they chosen for themselves, or their friends chosen for them, they would have chosen otherwise. They would have been brighter here, but less glorious in His kingdom. They would have had Lot's portion, not Abraham's. If they had halted anywhere--if He had taken off His hand, and let them stray back--what would they have lost? What forfeits in the morning of the resurrection? But He stayed them up, even against themselves. Many a time their foot had well-nigh slipped; but He, in mercy, held them up; now, even in this life, they know all he did was done well. It was good for them to suffer here, for they shall reign hereafter--to bear the cross below, for they shall wear the crown above; and that not their will but His was done on them.

Instead I turned my attention back to the copper of peach jam, releasing its autumnal scent. Peach is perhaps the most perfect fruit for making jam: sweet, yet firm; the golden flesh turning to a darker burnt-orange with cooking. My method allows the pieces of fruit to stay intact during the process, while retaining all the flavor. Today, we will leave the sugar and peach mixture to steep under a sheet of muslin; tomorrow, we will cook it, then ladle it into clean glass jars to put away for the winter. There's something very comforting about the ritual of jam-making. It speaks of cellars filled with preserves; of neat rows of jars on pantry shelves. It speaks of winter mornings and bowls of chocolat au lait, with thick slices of good fresh bread and last year's peach jam, like a promise of sunshine at the darkest point of the year. It speaks of four stone walls, a roof, and of seasons that turn in the same place, in the same way, year after year, with sweet familiarity. It is the taste of home.

My attorney general, Eric Holder, would later point out that as egregious as the behavior of the banks may have been leading up to the crisis, there were few indications that their executives had committed prosecutable offenses under existing statutes—and we were not in the business of charging people with crimes just to garner good headlines. But to a nervous and angry public, such answers—no matter how rational—weren’t very satisfying. Concerned that we were losing the political high ground, Axe and Gibbs urged us to sharpen our condemnations of Wall Street. Tim, on the other hand, warned that such populist gestures would be counterproductive, scaring off the investors we needed to recapitalize the banks. Trying to straddle the line between the public’s desire for Old Testament justice and the financial markets’ need for reassurance, we ended up satisfying no one. “It’s like we’ve got a hostage situation,” Gibbs said to me one morning. “We know the banks have explosives strapped to their chests, but to the public it just looks like we’re letting them get away with a robbery.

Hope is more than wishing things will work out. It is resting in the God who holds all things in his wise and powerful hands. We use the word hope in a variety of ways. Sometimes it connotes a wish about something over which we have no control at all. We say, “I sure hope the train comes soon,” or, “I hope it doesn’t rain on the day of the picnic.” These are wishes for things, but we wouldn’t bank on them. The word hope also depicts what we think should happen. We say, “I hope he will choose to be honest this time,” or, “I hope the judge brings down a guilty verdict.” Here hope reveals an internal sense of morality or justice. We also use hope in a motivational sense. We say, “I did this in the hope that it would pay off in the end,” or, “I got married in the hope that he would treat me in marriage the way he treated me in courtship.” All of this is to say that because the word hope is used in a variety of ways, it is important for us to understand how this word is used in Scripture or in its gospel sense. Biblical hope is foundationally more than a faint wish for something. Biblical hope is deeper than moral expectation, although it includes that. Biblical hope is more than a motivation for a choice or action, although it is that as well. So what is biblical hope? It is a confident expectation of a guaranteed result that changes the way you live. Let’s pull this definition apart. First, biblical hope is confident. It is confident because it is not based on your wisdom, faithfulness, or power, but on the awesome power, love, faithfulness, grace, patience, and wisdom of God. Because God is who he is and will never, ever change, hope in him is hope well placed and secure. Hope is also an expectation of a guaranteed result. It is being sure that God will do all that he has planned and promised to do. You see, his promises are only as good as the extent of his rule, but since he rules everything everywhere, I know that resting in the promises of his grace will never leave me empty and embarrassed. I may not understand what is happening and I may not know what is coming around the corner, but I know that God does and that he controls it all. So even when I am confused, I can have hope, because my hope does not rest on my understanding, but on God’s goodness and his rule. Finally, true hope changes the way you live. When you have hope that is guaranteed, you live with confidence and courage that you would otherwise not have. That confidence and courage cause you to make choices of faith that would seem foolish to someone who does not have your hope. If you’re God’s child, you never have to live hopelessly, because hope has invaded your life by grace, and his name is Jesus! For further study and encouragement: Psalm 20

Her eyes softened. 'And in His sovereignty, He can take even the most painful things in our lives and somehow turn them into good, just as He promised in His Word. He can give us beauty for ashes. Again, we don’t understand how. We see the moment; He sees the whole—eternity past through eternity future. He promises weeping may tarry for the night, but joy cometh in the morning.' Tears sprang into Grace’s eyes. She slipped her gaze to Mae again and gave her a tremulous smile. 'It is better, but still hard.' 'I know, dear. But this is not the end of your story.

You are more susceptible to Satan’s schemes when you are feeling rejected. Emotional pain will scream for relief, and it’s so easy to start justifying thoughts and actions outside God’s will. That’s why it’s crucial to watch what is influencing me and feeding my thoughts. A good question to ask myself is, where am I paying my attention? Specifically, what am I paying attention to first thing in the morning? And what am I paying attention to right before I go to sleep? If I want God to be my focus, I must give Him my first thoughts. And if I want my mind to be at peace when I sleep I must keep my thoughts fixed on His promises at night

As we begin each day, we trust we’ll still be around at the end of the day. What happens in between depends on how we start in the morning and how we end in the evening. Verses 1 and 2 describe an ideal day: “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your lovingkindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night.” That’s how we ought to live each day. When you wake up in the morning, remember His lovingkindness. Don’t wake up grouchy, saying, “Oh, my, another day.” Wake up saying, “Today the Lord loves me, and His lovingkindness endures forever. God has my life in His hands. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

One day Moses was walking in the mountains on his own when he saw a shepherd in the distance. The man was on his knees with his hands spread out to the sky, praying. Moses was delighted. But when he got closer, he was equally stunned to hear the shepherd’s prayer. “Oh, my beloved God, I love Thee more than Thou can know. I will do anything for Thee, just say the word. Even if Thou asked me to slaughter the fattest sheep in my flock in Thy name, I would do so without hesitation. Thou would roast it and put its tail fat in Thy rice to make it more tasty.” Moses inched toward the shepherd, listening attentively. “Afterward I would wash Thy feet and clean Thine ears and pick Thy lice for Thee. That is how much I love Thee.” Having heard enough, Moses interrupted the shepherd, yelling, “Stop, you ignorant man! What do you think you are doing? Do you think God eats rice? Do you think God has feet for you to wash? This is not prayer. It is sheer blasphemy.” Dazed and ashamed, the shepherd apologized repeatedly and promised to pray as decent people did. Moses taught him several prayers that afternoon. Then he went on his way, utterly pleased with himself. But that night Moses heard a voice. It was God’s. “Oh, Moses, what have you done? You scolded that poor shepherd and failed to realize how dear he was to Me. He might not be saying the right things in the right way, but he was sincere. His heart was pure and his intentions good. I was pleased with him. His words might have been blasphemy to your ears, but to Me they were sweet blasphemy.” Moses immediately understood his mistake. The next day, early in the morning, he went back to the mountains to see the shepherd. He found him praying again, except this time he was praying in the way he had been instructed. In his determination to get the prayer right, he was stammering, bereft of the excitement and passion of his earlier prayer. Regretting what he had done to him, Moses patted the shepherd’s back and said: “My friend, I was wrong. Please forgive me. Keep praying in your own way. That is more precious in God’s eyes.” The shepherd was astonished to hear this, but even deeper was his relief. Nevertheless, he did not want to go back to his old prayers. Neither did he abide by the formal prayers that Moses had taught him. He had now found a new way of communicating with God. Though satisfied and blessed in his naïve devotion, he was now past that stage—beyond his sweet blasphemy. “So you see, don’t judge the way other people connect to God,” concluded Shams. “To each his own way and his own prayer. God does not take us at our word. He looks deep into our hearts. It is not the ceremonies or rituals that make a difference, but whether our hearts are sufficiently pure or not.

Diana came over to see us off the morning we left for the airport. The four of us stood in our lower hallway saying good-bye with lots of hugs and good wishes. Diana and I were both in tears, as she held Patrick close and said she would miss him “tremendously.” We promised to write to each other and keep up our friendship. Not until later would Diana realize that the past year of being on her own in London and caring for Patrick would be, as she was to say, “the happiest year of my life.” I hugged her and assured her, “We’ll think of you every day and pray for good news from London soon. But,” I continued, “we care very much for you and will help you in any way we can, whatever happens.

And by the early 1970s our little parable of Sam and Sweetie is exactly what happened to the North American Golden Retriever. One field-trial dog, Holway Barty, and two show dogs, Misty Morn’s Sunset and Cummings’ Gold-Rush Charlie, won dozens of blue ribbons between them. They were not only gorgeous champions; they had wonderful personalities. Consequently, hundreds of people wanted these dogs’ genes to come into their lines, and over many matings during the 1970s the genes of these three dogs were flung far and wide throughout the North American Golden Retriever population, until by 2010 Misty Morn’s Sunset alone had 95,539 registered descendants, his number of unregistered ones unknown. Today hundreds of thousands of North American Golden Retrievers are descended from these three champions and have received both their sweet dispositions and their hidden time bombs. Unfortunately for these Golden Retrievers, and for the people who love them, one of these time bombs happens to be cancer. To be fair, a so-called cancer gene cannot be traced directly to a few famous sires, but using these sires so often increases the chance of recessive genes meeting—for good and for ill. Today, in the United States, 61.4 percent of Golden Retrievers die of cancer, according to a survey conducted by the Golden Retriever Club of America and the Purdue School of Veterinary Medicine. In Great Britain, a Kennel Club survey found almost exactly the same result, if we consider that those British dogs—loosely diagnosed as dying of “old age” and “cardiac conditions” and never having been autopsied—might really be dying of a variety of cancers, including hemangiosarcoma, a cancer of the lining of the blood vessels and the spleen. This sad history of the Golden Retriever’s narrowing gene pool has played out across dozens of other breeds and is one of the reasons that so many of our dogs spend a lot more time in veterinarians’ offices than they should and die sooner than they might. In genetic terms, it comes down to the ever-increasing chance that both copies of any given gene are derived from the same ancestor, a probability expressed by a number called the coefficient of inbreeding. Discovered in 1922 by the American geneticist Sewall Wright, the coefficient of inbreeding ranges from 0 to 100 percent and rises as animals become more inbred.

I was awakened at dawn to the sound of Marlboro Man knocking on the front door. A rancher through and through, he’d made good on his promise to show up at six. I should have known. He’d probably gotten fewer than five hours of sleep. I stumbled down the stairs, trying in vain to steady myself so I’d look like I’d been awake for longer than seven seconds. When I opened the door he was there, in his Wranglers, looking impossibly appealing for someone so profoundly sleep-deprived. The sweetness of his gentle grin was matched only by his adorably puffy eyes, which made him look like a little boy despite the steel gray hair on his head. My stomach fluttered; I wondered if there’d ever be a time when it would stop. “Good morning,” he said, stepping inside the door and nuzzling his face into my neck. A thousand tiny feathers tickled my skin.

Does it undermine my image as a warrior to be with you?' 'No. Does it undermine Feyre's when she's seen with Rhys?' Her stomach tightened. Her heartbeat pulsed in her arms, her gut. 'It's different for them,' she made herself say as they reached the end of the bridge and turned to walk along the quay flanking the river. Cassian asked carefully. 'Why?' Nesta kept her focus on the glittering river, vibrant with the hues of sunset. 'Because they're mates.' At his utter silence, she knew what he'd say. Halted again, bracing herself for it. Cassian's face was a void. Completely empty as he said, 'And we're not?' Nesta said nothing. He huffed a laugh. 'Because they're mates and you don't want us to be.' 'That word means nothing to me, Cassian,' she said, voice thick as she tried to keep the people who strode past from overhearing. 'It means something to all of you, but for most of my life, husband and wife was as good as it got. Mate is just a word.' 'That's bullshit.' When she only began walking along the river again, he asked. 'Why are you frightened?' 'I'm not frightened.' 'What spooked you? Just being seen publicly with me like this?' Yes. Having him kiss her and realising that soon she'd have to return to the world humming around them, and leave the House, and she didn't know what she would do then. What it would mean for them. If she would plunge back into that dark place she'd occupied before. Drag him down with her. 'Nesta. Talk to me.' She met his stare, but wouldn't open her mouth. Cassian's eyes blazed. 'Say it.' She refused. 'Say it, Nesta.' 'I don't know what you're talking about.' 'Ask me why I vanished for nearly a week after Solstice. Why I suddenly had to do an inspection right after a holiday.' Nesta kept her mouth shut. 'It was because I woke up the next morning and all I wanted to do was fuck you for a week straight. And I knew what that meant, what had happened, even though you didn't, and I didn't want to scare you. You weren't ready for the truth- not yet.' Her mouth went dry. 'Say it,' Cassian snarled. People gave them a wide berth. Some outright turned back toward the direction they'd come from. 'No.' His face shuttered with rage even as his voice became calm. 'Say it.' She couldn't. Not before he'd ordered her to, and certainly not now. She couldn't let him win like that. 'Say what I guessed from the moment we met,' he breathed. 'What I knew the first time I kissed you. What became unbreakable between us on Solstice night.' She wouldn't. 'I am your mate, for fuck's sake!' Cassian shouted, loud enough for people across the river to hear. 'You are my mate! Why are you still fighting it?' She let the truth, voiced at last, wash over her. 'You promised me forever on Solstice,' he said, voice breaking. 'Why is one word somehow throwing you off that?' 'Because with that one word, the last scrap of my humanity goes away!' She didn't care who saw them, who heard. 'With that one stupid word, I am no longer human in any way. I'm one of you!' He blinked. 'I thought you wanted to be one of us.' 'I don't know what I want. I didn't have a choice.' 'Well, I didn't have a choice in being shackled to you, either.' The declaration slammed into her. Shackled. He sucked in a breath. 'That was an incredibly poor choice of words.' 'But the truth, right?' 'No, I was angry- it's not true.' 'Why? Your friends saw me for what I was. What I am. The mating bond made you stupidly blind to it. How many times did they warn you away from me, Cassian?' She barked a cold laugh. Shackled. Words beckoned, sharp as knives, begging for her to grab one and plunge it into his chest. Make him hurt as much as that one would hurt her. Make him bleed. But if she did that, if she ripped into him... She couldn't. Wouldn't let herself do it.

He spent the morning at the beach. He had no idea which one, just some open stretch of coastline reaching out to the sea. An unbroken mantle of soft grey clouds was sitting low over the water. Only on the horizon was there a glimmer of light, a faint blue band of promise. The beach was deserted, not another soul on the vast, wide expanse of sand that stretched out in front of him. Having come from the city, it never ceased to amaze Jejeune that you could be that alone in the world. He walked along the beach, feeling the satisfying softness as the sand gave way beneath his slow deliberate strides. He ventured as close to the tide line as he dared, the white noise of the waves breaking on the shingles. A set of paw prints ran along the sand, with an unbroken line in between. A small dog, dragging a stick in its mouth. Always the detective, even if, these days, he wasn’t a very good one. Jejeune’s path became blocked by a narrow tidal creek carrying its silty cargo out to the sea. On each side of it were shallow lagoons and rock pools. When the tide washed in they would teem with new life, but at the moment they looked barren and empty. Jejeune looked inland, back to where the dark smudge of Corsican pines marked the edge of the coast road. He traced the creek’s sinuous course back to where it emerged from a tidal salt flat, and watched the water for a long time as it eddied and churned, meeting the incoming tide in an erotic swirl of water, the fresh intermingling with the salty in a turbulent, roiling dance, until it was no longer possible to tell one from the other. He looked out at the sea, at the motion, the color, the light. A Black-headed Gull swooped in and settled on a piece of driftwood a few feet away. Picture complete, thought Jejeune. For him, a landscape by itself, no matter how beautiful, seemed an empty thing. It needed a flicker of life, a tiny quiver of existence, to validate it, to confirm that other living things found a home here, too. Side by side, they looked out over the sea, the man and the bird, two beating hearts in this otherwise empty landscape, with no connection beyond their desire to be here, at this time. Was it the birds that attracted him to places like this, he wondered, or the solitude, the absence of demands, of expectations? But if Jejeune was unsure of his own motives, he knew this bird would have a purpose in being here. Nature always had her reasons. He chanced a sidelong glance at the bird, now settled to his presence. It had already completed its summer molt, crisp clean feathers having replaced the ones abraded by the harsh demands of eking out a living on this wild, windswept coastline. The gull stayed for a long moment, allowing Jejeune to rest his eyes softly, unthreateningly, upon it. And then, as if deciding it had allowed him enough time to appreciate its beauty, the bird spread its wings and effortlessly lifted off, wheeling on the invisible air currents, drifting away over the sea toward the horizon. p. 282-3

He went back to his first morning in Oxford: climbing a sunny hill with Ramy, picnic basket in hand. Elderflower cordial. Warm brioche, sharp cheese, a chocolate tart for dessert. The air that day smelled like a promise, all of Oxford shone like an illumination, and he was falling in love. 'It's so odd,' Robin said. Back then they'd already passed the point of honesty; they spoke to one another unfiltered, unafraid of the consequences. 'It's like I've known you forever.' 'Me too,' Ramy said. 'And that makes no sense,' said Robin, drunk already, though there was no alcohol in the cordial. 'Because I've known you for less than a day, and yet...' 'I think,' said Ramy, 'it's because when I speak, you listen.' 'Because you are fascinating.' 'Because you're a good translator.' Ramy leaned back on his elbows. 'That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.

She knows she should feel excited about her acceptance to Emory and the promise of spring break. She should feel infinite and hopeful, like the growing earth around her. Like the sunlight, which stretches longer each day, asking for one more minute, one more oak tree to shimmer on. Like the late March mornings, which arrive carrying a gentle heat, rocking it back and forth over the pavement in the parking lot, letting it crawl forth over the grass and the tree roots, nurturing it while it is still nascent and tender, before it turns into swollen summer. But while the whole earth prepares for spring, Hannah feels a great anxiety in her heart, for something dangerous has grown in her, something she never planted or even wanted to plant. It’s there. She knows it’s there. If she’s truthful with herself, she’s probably known it all along. But now, as the days grow longer and the Garden District grows greener, she can actually see it. It has sprung up at last, and it refuses to be unseen. She tells herself it’s passing. It’s temporary. It’s intensified only because she’s a senior and all of her emotions are heightened. It’s innocent. It’s typical for a girl her age. It’s no more or less of a feeling than everyone else has had at 17. But deep down, deep below the topsoil of her heart, she knows it’s not. Still, she pushes it down inside of her, buries it as far as it can go, suffocates it in the space between her stomach and her heart. She tells herself that she is stronger, that she can fight it, that she has control. That no one else has to know. I can ignore it, she thinks. I can refuse to look at it. I can stomp on it every time it springs up within me. So she lies to herself that everything is normal. That she is normal. She carries herself through the end of the school week by refusing to acknowledge it. By refusing to align her heart with the growing sunlight and the nurturing heat and the flowering plants and the tall, proud trees. ‘You alright?’ Baker asks, when Hannah says goodbye to her after school on Friday. Hannah stomps, buries, suffocates, wishes for death. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I’m good.

It sure can feel like you’re in the boxing ring of life sometimes. The bell goes off, and you go in swinging with all your might, doing the best you can, fighting the good fight. Then you receive a blow from out of nowhere. You’re stunned! You can hardly breathe, and you aren’t sure you’ll ever rise again. Well, whether you’ve lost a job, been diagnosed with an illness, or found yourself in some other difficult situation, God is there with you. In fact, He got into the ring the moment you did. He is right there ready to help you get back on your feet. Isn’t it great to know you’re not out there taking on the world all by yourself? No matter how many blows the world delivers, God is with you—always and in all ways! Your Promises from God Today OCTOBER 23 Evening The LORD preserves all who love Him, But all the wicked He will destroy. PSALM 145:20 Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. ISAIAH 41:10 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. 2 CORINTHIANS 4:8

The rock came loose, but Jake’s satisfied grunt turned into a howl of outraged pain as a set of huge teeth in the next stall clamped into Jake’s ample rear end. “You vicious bag of bones,” he shouted, jumping to his feet and throwing himself half over the rail in an attempt to land a punch on Attila’s body. As if the horse anticipated retribution, he sidled to the edge of his stall and regarded Jake from the corner of his eye with an expression that looked to Jake like complacent satisfaction. “I’ll get you for that,” Jake promised, and he started to shake his fist when he realized how absurd it was to threaten a dumb beast. Rubbing his offended backside, he turned to Mayhem and carefully put his own rump against the outside wall of the barn. He checked the hoof to make certain it was clean, but the moment his fingers touched the place where the rock had been lodged the chestnut jerked in pain. “Bruised you, did it?” Jake said sympathetically. “It’s not surprisin’, considering the size and shape of the rock. But you never gave a sign yesterday that you were hurtin’,” he continued. Raising his voice and infusing it with a wealth of exaggerated admiration, the patted the chestnut’s flank and glanced disdainfully at Attila while he spoke to Mayhem. “That’s because you’re a true aristocrat and a fine, brave animal-not a miserable, sneaky mule who’s not fit to be your stallmate!” If Attila cared one way or another for Jake’s opinion, he was disappointingly careful not to show it, which only made Jake’s mood more stormy when he stomped into the cottage. Ian was sitting at the table, a cup of steaming coffee cradled between his palms. “Good morning,” he said to Jake, studying the older man’s thunderous frown. “Mebbe you think so, but I can’t see it. Course, I’ve spent the night freezin’ out there, bedded down next to a horse that wants to make a meal of me, and who broke his fast with a bit of my arse already this mornin’. And,” he finished irately as he poured coffee from the tin pot into an earthenware mug and cast a quelling look at his amused friend, “your horse is lame!” Flinging himself into the chair beside Ian, he gulped down the scalding coffee without thinking what he was doing; his eyes bulged, and sweat popped out on his forehead. Ian’s grin faded. “He’s what?” “Picked up a rock, and he’s favoring his left foreleg.” Ian’s chair legs scraped against the wooden floor as he shoved his chair back and started to go to the barn. “There’s no need. It’s just a bruise.

She had cut his thumb off in the morning and that night she swept gaily into the room where he sat in a stupid daze of drugs and pain with his wrapped left hand held against his chest and she had a cake and she was bellowing 'Happy Birthday to You' in her on-key but tuneless voice although it was not his birthday and there were candles all over the cake and sitting in the exact center pushed into the frosting like an extra big candle had been his thumb his gray dead thumb the nail slightly ragged because he sometimes chewed it when he was stuck for a word and she told him If you promise to be good Paul you can have a piece of birthday cake but you won't have to eat any of the special candle so he promised to be good because he didn't want to be forced to eat any of the special candle but also because mostly because surely because Annie was great Annie was good let us thank her for our food including that we don't have to eat girls just wanna have fun but something wicked this way comes please don't make me eat my thumb Annie the mom Annie the goddess when Annie's around you better stay honest she knows when you’ve been sleeping she knows when you're awake she knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goddess' sake you better not cry you better not pout but most of all you better not scream don't scream don't scream don't scream don't He hadn't.

Am I to assume the Valerie I was introduced to earlier was the Valerie of our greenhouse notes?” He realized his mistake the instant her eyes clouded over and she glanced in the direction he’d looked. “Yes.” “Shall I ask Willington to clear his ballroom so you have the requisite twenty paces? Naturally, I’ll stand as your second.” Elizabeth drew a shaky breath, and a smile curved her lips. “Is she wearing a bow?” Ian looked and shook his head. “I’m afraid not.” “Does she have an earring?” He glanced again and frowned. “I think that’s a wart.” Her smile finally reached her eyes. “It’s not a large target, but I suppose-“ “Allow me,” he gravely replied, and she laughed. The last strains of their waltz were dying away, and as they left the dance floor Ian watched Mondevale making his way toward the Townsendes, who’d returned to the ballroom. “Now that you’re a marquess,” Elizabeth asked, “will you live in Scotland or in England?” “I only accepted the title, not the money or the lands,” he replied absently, watching Mondevale. “I’ll explain everything to you tomorrow morning at your house. Mondevale is going to ask you to dance as soon as we reach the Townsendes, so listen closely-I’m going to ask you to dance again later. Turn me down.” She sent him a puzzled look, but she nodded. “Is there anything else?” she asked when he was about to relinquish her to her friends. “There’s a great deal else, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.” Mystified, Elizabeth turned her attention to Viscount Mondevale. Alex watched the byplay between Elizabeth and Ian but her mind was elsewhere. While the couple danced, Alex had told her husband exactly what she thought of Ian Thornton who’d first ruined Elizabeth’s reputation and now deceived her into thinking he was still a man of very modest means. Instead of agreeing that Thornton was completely without principles, Jordan had calmly insisted that Ian intended to set matters aright in the morning, and then he’d made her, and his grandmother, promise not to tell Elizabeth anything until Ian had been given the opportunity to do so himself. Dragging her thoughts back to the ballroom, Alex hoped more than anything that Ian Thornton would do nothing more to hurt her good friend. By the end of the evening a majority of the guests at the Willington ball had drawn several conclusions: first, that Ian Thornton was definitely the natural grandson of the Duke of Stanhope (which everyone claimed to have always believed); second, that Elizabeth Cameron had very probably rebuffed his scandalous advances two years ago (which everyone claimed to have always believed); third, that since she had rejected his second request for a dance tonight, she might actually prefer her former suitor Viscount Mondevale (which hardly anyone could really believe).

is Jotunheim. If we go the wrong way, we’ll run across giants. Then we’ll all be butchered and put in a stew pot.” “We won’t go the wrong way,” I promised. “Will we, Jack?” “Hmm?” said the sword. “Oh, no. Probably not. Like, a sixty percent chance we’ll live.” “Jack….” “Kidding,” he said. “Jeez, so uptight.” He pointed upstream and led us through the foggy morning, with spotty snow flurries and a forty percent chance of death. Hearthstone Passes Out Even More than Jason Grace (Though I Have No Idea Who That Is) JOTUNHEIM LOOKED a lot like Vermont, just with fewer signs offering maple syrup products. Snow dusted the dark mountains. Waist-high drifts choked the valleys. Pine trees bristled with icicles. Jack hovered in front, guiding us along the river as it zigzagged through canyons blanketed in subzero shadows. We climbed trails next to half-frozen waterfalls, my sweat chilling instantly against my skin. In other words, it was a huge amount of fun. Sam and I stayed close to Hearthstone. I hoped my residual aura of Frey-glow might do him some good, but he still looked pretty weak. The best we could do was keep him from sliding off the goat. “Hang in there,” I told him. He signed something—maybe sorry–but his gesture was so listless I wasn’t sure. “Just rest,” I said. He grunted in frustration. He groped through his bag of runes, pulled one out, and placed it in my hands. He pointed to the stone, then to himself, as if to say This is me. The rune was one I didn’t know:

The kid in the newspaper was named Stevie, and he was eight. I was thirty-nine and lived by myself in a house that I owned. For a short time our local newspaper featured an orphan every week. Later they would transition to adoptable pets, but for a while it was orphans, children your could foster and possibly adopt of everything worked out, the profiles were short, maybe two or three hundred words. This was what I knew: Stevie liked going to school. He made friends easily. He promised he would make his bed every morning. He hoped that if he were very good we could have his own dog, and if he were very, very good, his younger brother could be adopted with him. Stevie was Black. I knew nothing else. The picture of him was a little bigger than a postage stamp. He smiled. I studied his face at my breakfast table until something in me snapped. I paced around my house, carrying the folded newspaper. I had two bedrooms. I had a dog. I had so much more than plenty. In return he would make his bed, try his best in school. That was all he had to bargain with: himself. By the time Karl came for dinner after work I was nearly out of my mind. “I want to adopt him,” I said. Karl read the profile. He looked at the picture. “You want to be his mother?” “It’s not about being his mother. I mean, sure, if I’m his mother that’s fine, but it’s like seeing a kid waving from the window of a burning house, saying he’ll make his bed if someone will come and get him out. I can’t leave him there.” “We can do this,” Karl said. We can do this. I started to calm myself because Karl was calm. He was good at making things happen. I didn’t have to want children in order to want Stevie. In the morning I called the number in the newspaper. They took down my name and address. They told me they would send the preliminary paperwork. After the paperwork was reviewed, there would be a series of interviews and home visits. “When do I meet Stevie?” I asked. “Stevie?” “The boy in the newspaper.” I had already told her the reason I was calling. “Oh, it’s not like that,” the woman said. “It’s a very long process. We put you together with the child who will be your best match.” “So where’s Stevie?” She said she wasn’t sure. She thought that maybe someone had adopted him. It was a bait and switch, a well-written story: the bed, the dog, the brother. They knew how to bang on the floor to bring people like me out of the woodwork, people who said they would never come. I wrapped up the conversation. I didn’t want a child, I wanted Stevie. It all came down to a single flooding moment of clarity: he wouldn’t live with me, but I could now imagine that he was in a solid house with people who loved him. I put him in the safest chamber of my heart, he and his twin brother in twin beds, the dog asleep in Stevie’s arms. And there they stayed, going with me everywhere until I finally wrote a novel about them called Run. Not because I thought it would find them, but because they had become too much for me to carry. I had to write about them so that I could put them down.

Don't you see, Rosalia? I wouldn't mind giving up Paris for you. That's why I can think about staying here or even asking you to come with me to Paris. I can't envision being without you. Before, you said I was being kind to you when I told you how it makes me sad when you're sad, and happy when you're happy. But I'm not being kind. I'm falling in love with you. Can't you see that? I'm crazy about you, and it's tearing me up on the inside. You're all I think about when I wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night. You're in my dreams. Even when I'm struggling over how to make a better pastry better, you pop up into my mind! I wonder what you would add to make it better. Then again, whom are we fooling? Your desserts are always better than mine!" Rosalia lowered her eyes and said softly, "That's not true. You've won a few of the contests we've had. Madre Carmela wouldn't lie." "She's getting old. Her palate is changing. I've heard the other workers who have tried your pastries express how good yours are and how they're often better than everyone else's." Rosalia folded her hands in her lap. He is falling in love with me. He'd said it! Though she was frightened to hear this, she couldn't deny that she was also elated. Antonio came back to the bed and sat down next to her. This time, he closed the space between them. He pushed her hair back behind her ear, and then took her face in both of his hands. She had no choice but to look at him. "I love you, Rosalia. I know you say we haven't known each other long, and we need to just think about today, but I'm tired of keeping how I feel about you inside of me. I love you. And nothing is going to change that. I'll wait for you. Whenever you are ready, I will be here, and I promise you my feelings won't change. Do you hear me?

March 19 MORNING “Strong in faith.” — Romans 4:20 CHRISTIAN, take good care of thy faith; for recollect faith is the only way whereby thou canst obtain blessings. If we want blessings from God, nothing can fetch them down but faith. Prayer cannot draw down answers from God’s throne except it be the earnest prayer of the man who believes. Faith is the angelic messenger between the soul and the Lord Jesus in glory. Let that angel be withdrawn, we can neither send up prayer, nor receive the answers. Faith is the telegraphic wire which links earth and heaven — on which God’s messages of love fly so fast, that before we call He answers, and while we are yet speaking He hears us. But if that telegraphic wire of faith be snapped, how can we receive the promise? Am I in trouble? — I can obtain help for trouble by faith. Am I beaten about by the enemy? — my soul on her dear Refuge leans by faith. But take faith away — in vain I call to God. There is no road betwixt my soul and heaven. In the deepest wintertime faith is a road on which the horses of prayer may travel — ay, and all the better for the biting frost; but blockade the road, and how can we communicate with the Great King? Faith links me with divinity. Faith clothes me with the power of God. Faith engages on my side the omnipotence of Jehovah. Faith ensures every attribute of God in my defence. It helps me to defy the hosts of hell. It makes me march triumphant over the necks of my enemies. But without faith how can I receive anything of the Lord? Let not him that wavereth — who is like a wave of the Sea — expect that he will receive anything of God! O, then, Christian, watch well thy faith; for with it thou canst win all things, however poor thou art, but without it thou canst obtain nothing. “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

Just what do you think you’re doing, Arin?” He looked up at Sarsine, blearily rubbing his eyes. He had fallen asleep in a chair. It was full morning. “I couldn’t sleep in my old rooms. At least here, in Etta’s suite--” “I’m not talking about your choice of bedchamber, though I can’t help but notice how conveniently close it is to the east wing.” Arin winced. There was usually only one reason why a man kept a conquered woman prisoner after a battle. “This isn’t what it seems.” “Oh, no? Too many people heard you call her a spoil of war.” “It’s not true.” Sarsine threw her hands up in the air. “Then why did you say it?” “Because I couldn’t think of any other way to save her!” Sarsine stood still. Then she leaned over him and shook his shoulder as if waking him from a nightmare. “You? Save a Valorian?” Arin captured her hand. “Please listen to me.” “I will when you say something I can understand.” “I did your lessons for you, when we were children.” “So?” “I told Anireh to shut up when she made fun of your nose. Do you remember? She pushed me down.” “Your sister was too beautiful for her own good. But all this was long ago. What’s your point?” Arin held both her hands now. “We share something, and probably not for very long. The Valorians will come. There will be a siege.” He groped for what to say. “By the gods, just listen.” “Oh, Arin. Haven’t you learned? The gods won’t hear you.” She sighed. “But I will.” He told her about the day he had been sold to Kestrel, and every day since. He held nothing back. When he finished, Sarsine’s expression had changed. “You’re still a fool,” she said, but gently. “I am,” he whispered. “What do you plan to do with her?” Arin tilted his head helplessly against the carved back of his father’s chair. “I don’t know.” “She demanded to see a sick friend. Said you made her a promise.” “Yes, but I can’t do it.” “Why not?” “Kestrel hates me, but she still speaks to me. Once she sees Jess…she’ll never do that again.

CHAPTER 5. Advice from a Caterpillar The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. “Who are you?” said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.” “What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar, sternly. “Explain yourself!” “I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.” “I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar. “I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied, very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself, to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.” “It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar. “Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; “but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?” “Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar. “Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” said Alice: “all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.” “You!” said the Caterpillar contemptuously. “Who are you?” Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar’s making such very short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, “I think you ought to tell me who you are, first.” “Why?” said the Caterpillar. Here was another puzzling question; and, as Alice could not think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind, she turned away. “Come back!” the Caterpillar called after her. “I’ve something important to say!” This sounded promising, certainly. Alice turned and came back again. “Keep your temper,” said the Caterpillar. “Is that all?” said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could. “No,” said the Caterpillar. Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it puffed away without speaking; but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said “So you think you’re changed, do you?” “I’m afraid I am, Sir,” said Alice. “I can’t remember things as I used—and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together!

Waiting on God doesn’t mean sitting around and hoping. Waiting means believing he will do what he’s promised and then acting with confidence. Waiting on God is not at all like the meaningless waiting that you do at the dentist’s office. You know, he’s overbooked, so you’re still sitting there more than an hour past your scheduled appointment. You’re a man, but you’re now reading Family Circle magazine. You’ve begun to read the article titled “The 7 Best Chicken Recipes in the World.” When you’re a man and you’re getting ready to tear a chicken recipe out of Family Circle magazine because the recipe sounds so good, you know that you have been waiting too long! But waiting on God is not like that. Waiting on God is an active life based on confidence in his presence and promises, not a passive existence haunted by occasional doubt. Waiting on God isn’t internal torment that results in paralysis. No, waiting on God is internal rest that results in courageous action. Waiting is your calling. Waiting is your blessing. Every one of God’s children has been chosen to wait, because every one of God’s children lives between the “already” and the “not yet.” Already this world has been broken by sin, but not yet has it been made new again. Already Jesus has come, but not yet has he returned to take you home with him forever. Already your sin has been forgiven, but not yet have you been fully delivered from it. Already Jesus reigns, but not yet has his final kingdom come. Already sin has been defeated, but not yet has it been completely destroyed. Already the Holy Spirit has been given, but not yet have you been perfectly formed into the likeness of Jesus. Already God has given you his Word, but not yet has it totally transformed your life. Already you have been given grace, but not yet has that grace finished its work. You see, we’re all called to wait because we all live right smack dab in the middle of God’s grand redemptive story. We all wait for the final end of the work that God has begun in and for us. We don’t just wait—we wait in hope. And what does hope in God look like? It is a confident expectation of a guaranteed result. We wait believing that what God has begun he will complete, so we live with confidence and courage. We get up every morning and act upon what is to come, and because what is to come is sure, we know that our labor in God’s name is never in vain. So we wait and act. We wait and work. We wait and fight. We wait and conquer. We wait and proclaim. We wait and run. We wait and sacrifice. We wait and give. We wait and worship. Waiting on God is an action based on confident assurance of grace to come.

went off, without waiting for serving men, and unsaddled my horse, and washed such portions of his ribs and his spine as projected through his hide, and when I came back, behold five stately circus tents were up—tents that were brilliant, within, with blue, and gold, and crimson, and all manner of splendid adornment! I was speechless. Then they brought eight little iron bedsteads, and set them up in the tents; they put a soft mattress and pillows and good blankets and two snow-white sheets on each bed. Next, they rigged a table about the centre-pole, and on it placed pewter pitchers, basins, soap, and the whitest of towels—one set for each man; they pointed to pockets in the tent, and said we could put our small trifles in them for convenience, and if we needed pins or such things, they were sticking every where. Then came the finishing touch—they spread carpets on the floor! I simply said, "If you call this camping out, all right—but it isn't the style I am used to; my little baggage that I brought along is at a discount." It grew dark, and they put candles on the tables—candles set in bright, new, brazen candlesticks. And soon the bell—a genuine, simon-pure bell—rang, and we were invited to "the saloon." I had thought before that we had a tent or so too many, but now here was one, at least, provided for; it was to be used for nothing but an eating-saloon. Like the others, it was high enough for a family of giraffes to live in, and was very handsome and clean and bright-colored within. It was a gem of a place. A table for eight, and eight canvas chairs; a table-cloth and napkins whose whiteness and whose fineness laughed to scorn the things we were used to in the great excursion steamer; knives and forks, soup-plates, dinner-plates—every thing, in the handsomest kind of style. It was wonderful! And they call this camping out. Those stately fellows in baggy trowsers and turbaned fezzes brought in a dinner which consisted of roast mutton, roast chicken, roast goose, potatoes, bread, tea, pudding, apples, and delicious grapes; the viands were better cooked than any we had eaten for weeks, and the table made a finer appearance, with its large German silver candlesticks and other finery, than any table we had sat down to for a good while, and yet that polite dragoman, Abraham, came bowing in and apologizing for the whole affair, on account of the unavoidable confusion of getting under way for a very long trip, and promising to do a great deal better in future! It is midnight, now, and we break camp at six in the morning. They call this camping out. At this rate it is a glorious privilege to be a pilgrim to the Holy Land.

In the uncertain hour before the morning Near the ending of interminable night At the recurrent end of the unending After the dark dove with the flickering tongue Had passed below the horizon of his homing While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin Over the asphalt where no other sound was Between three districts whence the smoke arose I met one walking, loitering and hurried As if blown towards me like the metal leaves Before the urban dawn wind unresisting. And as I fixed upon the down-turned face That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge The first-met stranger in the waning dusk I caught the sudden look of some dead master Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled Both one and many; in the brown baked features The eyes of a familiar compound ghost Both intimate and unidentifiable. So I assumed a double part, and cried And heard another's voice cry: 'What! are you here?' Although we were not. I was still the same, Knowing myself yet being someone other— And he a face still forming; yet the words sufficed To compel the recognition they preceded. And so, compliant to the common wind, Too strange to each other for misunderstanding, In concord at this intersection time Of meeting nowhere, no before and after, We trod the pavement in a dead patrol. I said: 'The wonder that I feel is easy, Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak: I may not comprehend, may not remember.' And he: 'I am not eager to rehearse My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten. These things have served their purpose: let them be. So with your own, and pray they be forgiven By others, as I pray you to forgive Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail. For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. But, as the passage now presents no hindrance To the spirit unappeased and peregrine Between two worlds become much like each other, So I find words I never thought to speak In streets I never thought I should revisit When I left my body on a distant shore. Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us To purify the dialect of the tribe And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight, Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort. First, the cold friction of expiring sense Without enchantment, offering no promise But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit As body and soul begin to fall asunder. Second, the conscious impotence of rage At human folly, and the laceration Of laughter at what ceases to amuse. And last, the rending pain of re-enactment Of all that you have done, and been; the shame Of motives late revealed, and the awareness Of things ill done and done to others' harm Which once you took for exercise of virtue. Then fools' approval stings, and honour stains. From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.' The day was breaking. In the disfigured street He left me, with a kind of valediction, And faded on the blowing of the horn. -T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding

I don't want anyone else but sometimes, surprisingly, there's someone, not the prettiest or the most available, but you know that in another life it would be her. Or him, don't you find? A small quickening. The room responds slightly to being entered. Like a raised blind. Nothing intended, and a long way from doing anything, but you catch the glint of being someone else's possibility, and it's a sort of politeness to show you haven't missed it, so you push it a little, well within safety, but there's that sense of a promise almost being made in the touching and kissing without which no one can seem to say good morning in this poney business and one more push would do it. -The Real Thing (London 1982), p.73 Today, I bought a copy of the play at the co-op, I thought I should send it to you- out of a sort of politeness.

pranced to her cub's side. "Lucky!" she yelled. "How many times do I have to tell you to go home and stay with your siblings? You are a tiny lion cub, not a brave adventurer!" The mother lizard smiled up at Lucky. "Actually, I'm not so sure," she said. "This little cub travelled across the entire jungle and brought my lost baby home. That makes him the bravest, greatest adventurer this jungle has ever seen!" Lucky's mother's jaw dropped. She looked at the lizard. She looked at Lucky. Then she smiled. "You have proven me wrong. You really are a great adventurer! But a tiny cub like you, traveling across the entire jungle? How did you do it?" she asked. "Roar!" Lucky cried. He stood tall, puffed up his chest and said; "Because I am Lucky!" Lucky and Pec the parrot’s great adventure! The next day, Lucky was feeling especially brave. After all he saved a little lizard from the dangers of the jungle and brought him safely home. His mother was so proud of him that she didn't even punish him for not babysitting his brothers and sisters! She even gave him the best part of their meal for dinner. And he had permission to spend 2 hours in the jungle this very morning. But he had to stay close to home and come back in time to babysit his younger brother and sisters. "There is much adventuring to be done in just 2 hours!" he said to himself, as walked under the shady green canopy, following a path into the jungle. "But I am the bravest, greatest adventurer in the jungle. Watch out jungle! Here I come! Roooaaaar! “Suddenly he saw the tall grass to his right sway, but there wasn't any wind. The grass rustled as if someone was moving around. Lucky crouched down in his stalking pose that he had practiced as part of his adventure skills. He crept forward, his golden-green eyes wide and fixed on the swaying grass. Slowly, oh so slowly he moved closer and closer. He was right in front of the tall green grass, and heard the rustling again. "ROOOOOAAAARRR!" He burst through the grass with his very best roar and his very best pounce. "AAAAACCCCCCKKKKKK" screeched a large shiny grey parrot. "What is wrong with you?! It is extremely rude to just bust into a parrot's home without knocking! I swear, kids these days just don't have any manners!" The parrot shrieked right into Lucky's ear. "Owwww. Stop it! I am a brave adventurer and I am saving you!" Lucky snapped back, "It's also rude to yell in the ear of the lion saving your life" The parrot's head feathers stood up on the back of his head like he had a mohawk, and he glared at Lucky from piercing yellow eyes. "Lions are known to eat birds like me. I am not going to let my glorious self, become your breakfast. I am a mighty warrior and if you eat me, I will give you a very upset belly. I promise". Lucky laughed a barky lion laugh, "I do not eat birds. My mother is a great hunter and brings home only the biggest and fattest of animals for us to eat. Besides, I will be a great adventurer, the greatest and bravest in the jungle". Pec's shimmering grey head feathers slowly lowered. He shook his head, stuck his beak under his wing and looked at Lucky from the corner of his yellowish eye. "A brave adventurer, hmm? You look more like a little lion cub getting into mischief" he said as he brought his head from under his wing. “My name is Pec. What is yours?" he asked. "My name is Lucky and I don't get into mischief. Just yesterday I saved a lizard from a deep, scary crack in the ground. He could have died. I even took him home and it was a long ways away" Lucky said as proudly as he could after being squawked at by a big feathery bird. Pec's eyes twinkled at him and he opened his sharply hooked beak letting out a squeaky laugh. "I believe you, young Lucky. And, since you are so good at helping others, could you

Gmorning from me, the wrong side of the bed It was nice waking up with you, Though I know you blame me for all manner of calamity. Sorry. This I promise: Your sh**ty morning/day/week/year is NOT a life sentence Roll over Get up Let’s go Gnight from me, your waiting bed. I don't have any answers, & I don't know which side of me will be wrong in the morning. This I promise: You do not need to bring the day/week/life you've had to your dreams tonight; the cool side of the pillow awaits, unburden yourself I got you

What in Hades were you doing, lady? I almost hit you." Remington rose to confront him, but before he could say a word, Madeline came up like an infuriated wasp. "What was I doing? What were you doing? You almost hit this dog." Her cheeks and the tip of her nose glowed scarlet with fury. Her eyes sparked with brilliant blue. She had a smudge on one cheek and her hat was askew, but that didn't matter, for all the passion she had revealed in the morning's kiss she put into the defense of a mutt she had never before seen. Surly with guilt, the youth said, "It was just a flea-ridden stray." Then her loveliness registered. He jerked to attention, back straight, shoulders back. He stared with avid fascination into her face. "I believe we may have met, although I can't quite remember-" She rampaged on, "Is that the way you were taught? To run over defenseless animals?" Stepping back, Remington folded his arms. This youth didn't stand a chance. Her eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute. I recognize you. You're Lord Mauger!" "Yes, I... I am. Viscount Mauger, humbly at your service." Whipping his hat from his head, the youth bowed, eager to make a belated good impression on the beauty before him. "And you are...?" She wasn't impressed or interested. "I know your mother, and she would box your ears for this." Dull red rose in Mauger's cheeks. "You won't tell her." "Not if you promise to be more careful in the future. I won't be around to rescue the next dog, and I remember what a fine lad you were. You love animals, and you'd feel guilty if you killed one." "You're... you're right." Mauger's pleading eyes looked much like the dog's. "I just bought the chestnut, and came into town, and I wanted to show him off, but that's no excuse..." As Mauger dug his toe into the dirt, Remington realized he was observing a master at work. She had taken the young man from fury, to infatuation, to guilt in one smooth journey, and Mauger adored her for it.

In the scripture, God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. In the natural it was impossible. Abraham didn’t have one child. He was eighty years old. But God didn’t just give him the promise; God gave him a picture to look at. God said, “Abraham, go out and look at the stars--that’s how many descendants you will have.” I’ve read where there are six thousand stars in the Eastern sky where he was. It’s not a coincidence that there are six thousand promises in the scripture. God was saying, “Every promise that you can get a vision for, I will bring it to pass.” God told him also to look at the grains of sand at the seashore, because that was how many relatives he would have. Why did God give him a picture? God knew there would be times when it would look as if the promise would not come to pass, and Abraham would be discouraged and tempted to give up. In those times, Abraham would go out at night and look up at the sky. When he saw the stars, faith would rise in his heart. Something would tell him, “It’s going to happen, I can see it.” In the morning when his thoughts told him, “You’re too old, it’s too late, you heard God wrong,” he would go down to the beach and look at the grains of sand. His faith would be restored. Like Abraham, there will be times when it seems as if your dreams are not coming to pass. It’s taking so long. The medical report doesn’t look good. You don’t have the resources. Business is slow. You could easily give up. But like Abraham, you’ve got to go back to that picture. Keep that vision in front of you. When you see the key to your new house, the outfit for your baby, the tennis shoes for when you’re healthy, the picture frame for your spouse, the article inspiring you to build an orphanage, those pictures of what you’re dreaming about will keep you encouraged. God is saying to you what He said to Abraham: “If you can see it, then I can do it. If you have a vision for it, then I can make a way. I can open up new doors. I can bring the right people. I can give you the finances. I can break the chains holding you back.

Keep working and growing If you want to stay passionate, you have to stay productive. You have to have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. When you’re not producing, you’re not growing. You may retire from your job, but don’t ever retire from life. Stay busy. Keep using your mind. Keep helping others. Find some way to stay productive. Volunteer at the hospital. Babysit your relatives’ children. Mentor a young person. When you quit being productive, you start slowly dying. God promises if you keep Him in first place, He will give you a long, satisfied life. How long is a long life? Until you are satisfied. If you quit producing at fifty and you’re satisfied, then the promise is fulfilled. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got too much in me to die right now. I’m not satisfied. I have dreams that have yet to be realized. I have messages that I’ve yet to give. I have children to enjoy, a wife to raise…I mean a wife to enjoy. I have grandchildren yet to be born. When I get to be about ninety, and I’m still strong, still healthy, still full of joy, and still good-looking, then I’ll say, “Okay God I’m satisfied. I’m ready for my change of address. Let’s go.” Some people are too easily satisfied. They quit living at fifty. We don’t bury them until they are eighty. Even though they’ve been alive, they haven’t been really living. Maybe they went through disappointments. They had some failures, or somebody did them wrong and they lost their joy. They just settled and stopped enjoying life. But God has another victory in your future. You wouldn’t be breathing if God didn’t have something great in front of you. You need to get back your passion. God is not finished with you. God will complete what he started in your life. The scripture says God will bring us to a flourishing finish--not a fizzling finish. You need to do your part and shake off the self-pity, shake off what didn’t work out. You may have a reason to feel sorry for yourself, but you don’t have right. God said He will take what was meant for your harm and not only bring you out, but also bring you out better off than you were before.

And there I lie in these damned bandages for a week. And there he lies, swathed up too, like a little mummy. And never crying. But now I like raking him in my arms and looking at him. A lovely forehead, incredibly white, the eyebrows drawn very faintly in gold dust... Well, this was a funny time. (The big bowl of coffee in the morning with a pattern of red and blue flowers. I was always so thirsty.) But uneasy, uneasy... Ought a baby to be as pretty as this, as pale as this, as silent as this? The other babies yell from morning to night. Uneasy... When I complain about the bandages she says: 'I promise you that when you take them off you'll be just as you were before.' And it is true. When she takes them off there is not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease. And five weeks afterwards there I am, with not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease. And there he is, lying with a ticket tied around his wrist because he died in a hospital. And there I am looking down at him, without one line, without one wrinkle, without one crease...

maybe an hour in the morning or at night and just dedicate it to that skill you have. Read books about it. Take courses to excel at it. Promise. In the next five or six months, you will be better at it than most people.  Your confidence will go up and you will no longer compare yourself to others or try to be good at something just for the sake of proving to others that you are confident. You will have finally discovered what your life will be about.

We catch the train that makes stops in every village, sitting as close to each other as possible, freely kissing whenever we feel like it. I’m torn between wishing we hadn’t waited so long to get to this point and almost wishing it never had happened at all. Now I really know what I’m going to be missing. The motion of the train conflicts with all the crap in my head and I panic. I lay my head against Darren’s chest and wrap my arms around his middle. He puts both of his arms around me, hugging me tight. I can feel him sigh. Is he thinking through everything like I am? “We’ll figure it out,” he says in my ear before he kisses the top of my head. “I promise.” I squeeze him tighter and memorize the rhythm of his heartbeat. We decide to meet at the trattoria for breakfast first thing tomorrow and spend the whole morning together before he has to leave. I already can’t wait to kiss him again, but I don’t look forward to figuring out the logistics of a long-distance relationship, if that’s what he even wants. If it’s what I want. Our lips touch until the last possible moment when the doors of the train threaten to close at his stop in Manarola. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, a smile stretching ear to ear. “Tomorrow,” I reply, beaming back at him. “Good night.” “Good night, Pippa.” He hops down onto the platform and the doors slap together. I look at him through the grimy window, reminded of the time I saw him across the metro station in Rome, when I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again. Now I know I will for sure. And I also know there will be kissing.

I can’t breathe. I’m 97% sure that my nerve endings are literally on fire, and true to his promise, walking today, or the days in the near future, will be a challenge. God bless him. “God, Sarah.” If I could move right now, I’d open my eyes and look down at him, but I can’t. He’s still inside me, his body also still quivering. I didn’t think it was possible, but this round might be better than any of the previous six. Six. Rounds. Of sex. In one twelve-hour period. I collapse on his chest, bury my face in his neck, try to regain use of my extremities, and purr when he wraps his arms around my back and hugs me close. His arms make me want to bite him. In the best sexual way possible. I don’t know what he does to keep them so…awesome, but dear sweet Moses, am I thankful. “I’ll make you breakfast,” he murmurs against my neck, sending a fresh round of goose bumps over my skin. “Okay. I’ll get off of you in about a month.” He chuckles and slaps my ass, and then before I know it, I’m flat on my back and he’s leaning over me, smiling down at me with those amazing green eyes of his. “How can you move?” “Quick recovery,” he says and kisses my nose. “You stay here and collect yourself and I’ll go cook.” “Cook what?” I ask. “There’s nothing in your fridge.” “The bagel place delivers.” He winks, places a smacking kiss on my lips, then jumps up and saunters out of the bedroom. Naked. Holy shit. I cover my face with my hands and can’t help but smile. What a night! Adam didn’t wait until this morning to have his way with me again. No, that happened sometime around 2:00 a.m. It seems that man can’t keep his hands off of me, and that doesn’t hurt my feelings in the least. I was so right. One night with Adam Spencer was unforgettable and a giant boost to my ego. I giggle and sit up, sighing when my muscles complain. Good lord, muscles I didn’t even know existed are protesting after the night of exhausting sex I just had. I had sex. A lot. With the hottest man ever. I giggle once more and stand, groaning now at the uncomfortable pull of my inner thigh muscles, and walk into his bathroom to clean up. The shower is quick, and before I know it, I’m in his kitchen, wearing last night’s clothes, kind of excited about the walk of shame I’ll do when he drops me off. “I like that smile,” Adam says as he walks into the kitchen holding a brown bag that was just delivered. “You put it there,” I reply with a wink. “You put on shorts.” He raises a brow. “I can take them back off.” “No.” I shake my head and laugh as Adam opens the bag of food. He smirks and passes me a bagel, already toasted with cream cheese. “How do you feel?” “Sore.” I lick cream cheese off my thumb and grin at the sexy man taking a bite of his breakfast. “Well sexed.” “Mission accomplished then.” He reaches over the island and drags his thumb down my cheek. He kisses my forehead, then pulls away. “Thank you.” “For?” “Dinner. Breakfast.” The most amazing sex of my entire life. “You’re welcome.

I heard all these birds singing and singing so loud and so cheerful. Little birds were chirping and chirping. Big birds were making a melody. It was like they were having a big party. I wanted to say to them, “Hey, birds. Have you read the newspapers lately? Did you see the stock market last year? You’re not supposed to be singing, enjoying life. What’s wrong with you? You’re acting like everything will be all right.” What was it with those birds? They know a secret. They know their heavenly Father is in control. They know God has promised to take care of them, so they go through the day singing and enjoying life, regardless of the circumstances. That’s how to start off each day. Get up in the morning and have a song of praise in your heart. Put a smile on your face. Go out into the day and be determined to enjoy it. The apostle Paul wrote: “Be happy [in your faith] and rejoice and be glad-hearted continually (always)” (1 Thessalonians 5:16 AMP). How long are we supposed to be glad-hearted? How long are we supposed to have a smile on our faces? As long as people treat us right? As long as we feel okay? As long as the economy is up? No, the Scripture says, “Be glad-hearted continually (always).” That means in the good times and in the tough times, when it’s sunny and when it’s raining. When dark clouds are over your head and you feel like life is depressing and gloomy, always remember that right above those dark clouds the sun is shining. You may not be able to see the sun in your life right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s not up there. It’s just blocked by the dark clouds. The good news is, the clouds are temporary. The clouds will not last forever. The sun will shine in your life once again. In the meantime, keep your joy. Be glad-hearted continually. Don’t let a few clouds darken your life. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. That means we all face disappointments, unfair situations, tests, trials, and temptation. But know this: Right past the test is promotion. On the other side of every difficulty is increase. If you go through adversity with a smile on your face and a song in your heart, on the other side there will be a reward.

Isaiah 26: You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock. (vv. 3–4) This passage tells us where peace is to be found. It is never found in trying to figure out the secret will of God. It’s not to be found in personal planning or attempts to control the circumstances and people in your life. Peace is found in trusting the person who controls all the things that you don’t understand and who knows no mystery because he has planned it all. How do you experience this remarkable peace—the kind of peace that doesn’t fade away when disappointments come, when people are difficult, or when circumstances are hard? You experience it by keeping your mind stayed on the Lord. The more you meditate on his glory, his power, his wisdom, his grace, his faithfulness, his righteousness, his patience, his zeal to redeem, and his commitment to his eternal promises to you, the more you can deal with mystery in your life. Why? Because you know the One behind the mystery is gloriously good, worthy not only of your trust but also the worship of your heart. It really is true that peace in times of trouble is not found in figuring out your life, but in worship of the One who has everything figured out already.

prettiness and their cut showed off her neat figure. It was a pity that Paul wasn’t there to see the chrysalis changing into a butterfly. She had to make do with Queenie. She had to admit that by teatime, even though she had filled the rest of the day by taking the dogs for a long walk, she was missing him, which was, of course, exactly what he had intended. Mrs Parfitt, when Emma asked her the next day, had no idea when he would be back. ‘Sir Paul goes off for days at a time,’ she explained to Emma. ‘He goes to other hospitals, and abroad too. Does a lot of work in London, so I’ve been told. Got friends there too. I dare say he’ll be back in a day or two. Why not put on one of your new skirts and that jacket and go down to the shop for me and fetch up a few groceries?’ So Emma went shopping, exchanging good mornings rather shyly with the various people she met. They were friendly, wanting to know if she liked the village and did she get on with the dogs? She guessed that there were other questions hovering on their tongues but they were too considerate to ask them. Going back with her shopping, she reflected that, since she had promised to marry Paul, it might be a good thing to do so as soon as possible. He had told her to decide on a date. As soon after the banns had been read as could be arranged—which thought reminded her that she would certainly need something special to wear on her wedding-day. Very soon, she promised herself, she would get the morning bus to Exeter and go to the boutique Paul had taken her to. She had plenty of money still—her own money too…Well, almost her own, she admitted, once the house was sold and she had paid him back what she owed him. The time passed pleasantly, her head filled with the delightful problem of what she would wear next, and even the steady rain which began to fall as she walked on the moor with the dogs did nothing to dampen her

the horses to the oak freight wagon, and McCloskey helped him load, distributing the weight evenly in the wagon. When they were done, Johnny got a tarpaulin, and as he'd done many times, he threw it over the load and tucked it in carefully to keep out any rain he might encounter. Finally he'd strapped it all down tight with ropes. McCloskey had looked over the load and said, "Good job, Johnny. You sure you can do this run by yourself?" He said, "I'm sure I'll be fine, Fleet. It's just 19 miles over there and mostly flat. I won't have to use the brakes at all."   "Be sure though and set the brake when you stop." Johnny nodded, and Fleet asked, "You got your book?" Nodding and smiling, Johnny said, "Yessir, got it," as he drove the wagon out of the warehouse yard, headed west to Forest City, which was often referred to as "Irish City" because it had been settled by Irishmen. The folks there were still mostly Irish, which was evident from the heavy Irish lilt to the speech of many of the folks living there. McCloskey's face showed tiny creases of worry as he watched Johnny drive off. He was a good boy, but he was still a boy being asked to do a man's job. In his year on the job, Johnny had grown to be a fine young man. He was only a few inches short of six feet, and he'd added a lot of muscle. He could lift as much as most of the teamsters. Even so, McCloskey worried about sending the boy out alone, but he'd had no choice in the matter. He'd promised the load would reach Forest City by tomorrow morning. Johnny had a brand-new Spencer repeating rifle leaning against his leg. Peter Sarpy, the owner, had used his contacts back east and gotten a shipment of the new rifles. Now, with his four drivers armed with repeating rifles, Sarpy worried a little less about being robbed. But the rifle made Johnny worry more because if outlaws did hit a wagon, they'd kill the driver if he lifted a rifle. Johnny had helped take a load to Forest City with old Monk Beeson two weeks before, and they hadn't had any problems, and he didn't expect any problems with today's load. But during that trip, Beeson had told Johnny about an outlaw gang living a few miles north of Forest City led by a man the Irish called Ranger Jones who collected tribute from prospective

Literature has sometimes flourished under despotic regimes, but, as has often been pointed out, the despotisms of the past were not totalitarian. Their repressive apparatus was always inefficient, their ruling classes were usually either corrupt or apathetic or half-liberal in outlook, and the prevailing religious doctrines usually worked against perfectionism and the notion of human infallibility. Even so it is broadly true that prose literature has reached its highest levels in periods of democracy and free speculation. What is new in totalitarianism is that its doctrines are not only unchallengeable but also unstable. They have to be accepted on pain of damnation, but on the other hand, they are always liable to be altered on a moment’s notice. Consider, for example, the various attitudes, completely incompatible with one another, which an English Communist or ‘fellow-traveler’ has had to adopt toward the war between Britain and Germany. For years before September, 1939, he was expected to be in a continuous stew about ‘the horrors of Nazism’ and to twist everything he wrote into a denunciation of Hitler: after September, 1939, for twenty months, he had to believe that Germany was more sinned against than sinning, and the word ‘Nazi’, at least as far as print went, had to drop right out of his vocabulary. Immediately after hearing the 8 o’clock news bulletin on the morning of June 22, 1941, he had to start believing once again that Nazism was the most hideous evil the world had ever seen. Now, it is easy for the politician to make such changes: for a writer the case is somewhat different. If he is to switch his allegiance at exactly the right moment, he must either tell lies about his subjective feelings, or else suppress them altogether. In either case he has destroyed his dynamo. Not only will ideas refuse to come to him, but the very words he uses will seem to stiffen under his touch. Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child’s Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox. Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia…to be corrupted by totalitarianism one does not have to live in a totalitarian country. The mere prevalence of certain ideas can spread a kind of poison that makes one subject after another impossible for literary purposes. Wherever there is an enforced orthodoxy…good writing stops.

The more you meditate on his glory, his power, his wisdom, his grace, his faithfulness, his righteousness, his patience, his zeal to redeem, and his commitment to his eternal promises to you, the more you can deal with mystery in your life. Why? Because you know the One behind the mystery is gloriously good, worthy not only of your trust but also the worship of your heart. It really is true that peace in times of trouble is not found in figuring out your life, but in worship of the One who has everything figured out already.

doesn’t help that Charlotte’s younger than you are, and she’s a damn pretty girl,” Alex said sensibly. “Yes, she is.” Sasha sighed. It was too late to catch a flight that night, but she switched their flight to an earlier one the next morning, and they left the hotel at eight o’clock, and were back in New York at one. She wanted to kiss the ground. “Well, that’s over with,” she said, as they got into a cab at the airport. “We don’t have to see them again till the wedding. Are you ready to back out yet?” she asked him, and he laughed. “Of course not. Just don’t ever leave me alone with your mother. She scares me to death.” “Don’t worry, I won’t. I promise. Don’t leave me alone with her either.” He agreed. They went back to the apartment to drop off their things, and everyone was out, even Morgan, who had hardly left the house recently. Sasha hoped it was a good sign. —

Every morning when you wake up, I want you to make two promises to yourself. One, you’ll do your best to stay healthy and keep living. Two, you’ll be as good as you can to others and yourself.’ And that’s it.

Jolly says, 'You see? Mr Pilania, I asked your men to come here, I asked my poor neighbour to come here, to assure you of one thing. Whatever help you need, I will give it. Anything your men require to solve this case, to give this grieving man here the chance of revenge on the scum who killed his daughter, ask me. I am here to help.' The SSP says quietly, 'Justice. What we promise is justice.' Jolly says, 'Yes, yes. I agree. But what does Chand want?" Chand appears not to have heard the question. None of them speak as the father stares out towards the carp pond, the light, playful splash of water from the fountain the only sound in the room. The SSP rises, hands folded, to take his leave, and Chand says, I want him dead. The man who took Munia from me, he should die.' Jolly looks away, smiles at Ombir and Bhim Sain. "These policemen are good men,' he says to Chand. I've seen them at work. Early morning, late at night, in summer, in the monsoons, they are out in our village, doing their jobs. I promise you, Chand, this murder will be solved. You will have your vengeance." Ombir notes that, this time, Pilania does not correct him or speak of justice.

Epitaph 'On her Son H.P. at St. Syth’s Church where her body also lies interred' What on Earth deserves our trust? Youth and Beauty both are dust. Long we gathering are with pain, What one moment calls again. Seven years childless marriage past, A Son, a son is born at last: So exactly lim’d and fair, Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Air, As a long life promised, Yet, in less than six weeks dead. Too promising, too great a mind In so small room to be confined: Therefore, as fit in Heaven to dwell, He quickly broke the Prison shell. So the subtle Alchemist, Can’t with Hermes Seal resist The powerful spirit’s subtler flight, But t’will bid him long good night. And so the Sun if it arise Half so glorious as his Eyes, Like this Infant, takes a shrowd, Buried in a morning Cloud.

We're the cure for the hatred caused by despair. We’re the good morning of a bus driver who remembers our name, the tattooed man who gives up his seat on the subway. We’re every door held open with a smile when we look into each other’s eyes the way we behold the moon. We’re the moon. We’re the promise of one people, one breath declaring to one another: I see you. I need you. I am you.

A. Change negative self thoughts to positive self thoughts. Stop the self criticism. Life is hard enough, be kind to yourself. Become aware of just how often you make negative comments about yourself that lessen your self esteem. At the end of each day make a Note of the negative comments you made about yourself and make a promise to eliminate these from your thoughts. You know the ones, ’why am I so stupid?’ ‘I just knew I’d get that wrong.’ ‘this is such an ugly dress, shirt’, ‘I’m so fat’, you get the picture. Get rid of these self hurtful thoughts. B. Change your language and you will change how you feel about you! Try this activity. Replace the word ‘try’ with ‘I will do that’; Replace ‘I can’t’ with ‘I can’; Replace ‘I should’ with ‘I will do that’ C. Get Fit! Start an exercise program. Start small but start. The better you look the better you feel about yourself. Check with your doctor or health care provider. D. An Act of Kindness. Try this. You’ll feel good and so will others and it’s contagious. Surprise your secretary, co-worker or friend with a morning coffee, muffin or homemade treat. Treat your kids to a surprise dessert. Leave a note of kind words on a loved one’s pillow. Mail an invite for a lunch/dinner date to friend/partner/spouse. Smile at a senior on the street or grocery store. Email/phone/write a note to a friend or family member you haven’t seen for awhile. E. Take Action Anxiety and fear can keep you from moving forward and cause you to be unsatisfied with yourself. Try this. Next time you have a task to complete, no matter how small, create an action plan. Write down the answers to What, When, How. Now do it! Successfully completing tasks is a great self esteem builder. You feel good when you complete actions, no matter how small. F. Personal Affirmations Practiced daily personal affirmation can increase Self Esteem. Check here.

Grayden and I, along with Dahnath, Drael and countless others, stayed to keep vigil, sitting on the hillside until the funeral blaze consumed itself, settling into cinders. In the early hours of the morning, a light, almost magical snow began to fall, and the moon’s glow as it reflected off the ground brightened the scenery, making everything seem new. My uncle’s death had again set my family reeling. While we were accustomed to picking up pieces, sorting through rubble and holding on to memories, the brothers who had died had been the pillars of our family, strong leaders in Hytanica’s military, and shining examples of all that was good and honorable within our kingdom. But this time, beneath the grieving, there was hope--hope that glowed like the remaining embers. This land was again our own, the Province Wall would be torn down, and we citizens would once more walk through the city gates without fear or suspicion. I shivered, and Grayden put his arm around me, snuggling me close to him, and a melancholy smile played across my face. My uncle had promised he would find a husband for me who would meet my father’s standards. And at what did the Captain of the Guard fail?

In the whole history of theological exegesis and interpretation I know of nothing so utterly faulty, illogical and wholly unscriptural as that exegesis which teaches the angel song at Bethlehem to be the announcement of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Prince of Peace and that as such He should establish it among the nations after His ascension to heaven and during His absence from the world. The angels sang glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to “men of good will.” The angel who spoke to the shepherds keeping the temple sheep for the morning and the evening sacrifice was testifying to them that there was no longer need to keep the sheep for such a purpose. The day of animal sacrifices had passed, the living God had provided the true sacrifice, He who was born beneath the chaplet of heaven’s music, the Lamb of God ordained before the foundation of the world. He had been born into the world that He might make peace by the blood of His cross, not between man and man, not between nation and nation, but between man and God. He had been born to die and by His death reconcile a rebel world to God; on the basis of this sacrifice yet to be and when He should have risen from the dead as witness of the efficacy of His death He would bring peace to every soul that should be of good will—every soul that should surrender to the will of God by believing on Him, offering Him by faith as a sacrifice and claiming Him as a substitute. Every such soul should be at peace with, and have the peace of, God. This was the meaning of that natal hour at Bethlehem. The angels were not singing over Him as the Prince of Peace who had come to abolish war among the nations, but as the ordained sacrifice who should bring peace between the individual man and his God. And yet—He is to be the Prince of Peace and reign and rule as such over the earth, putting an end to war and establishing perfect peace among the nations. The promise of His reign and rule as the Prince of Peace is clearly set forth in Scripture; as it is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his peace and government there shall be no end.” But when? Where? Listen: “Upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom to order it.” And hear what Gabriel says to Mary when he comes to announce to her that she has been chosen of Almighty God to give birth to the Messiah of Israel. The angel says: “Thou shalt call his name Jesus . . . He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” He is to be the Prince of Peace when He sits upon the throne of united Israel in their own land and not before.

But when they rose the next morning, lo! the tree had vanished, and with it all their hopes. And on this very morning, when little Two Eyes looked out of her chamber window of the castle, she saw, to her great joy, that the tree had followed her. Little Two Eyes lived for a long time in great happiness; but she heard nothing of her sisters, till one day two poor women came to the castle, to beg for alms. Little Two Eyes saw them, and, looking earnestly in their faces, she recognised her two sisters, who had become so poor that they were obliged to beg their bread from door to door. But the good sister received them most kindly, and promised to take care of them and give them all they wanted. And then they did indeed repent and feel sorry for having treated her so badly in their youthful days.

biblical faith—that is, true faith in the existence, presence, promises, and provisions of God—never requires you to deny reality in any way. It is not biblical faith to try to convince yourself that things are better than they actually are. It is not biblical faith to work to make yourself feel good about what is not good. Biblical faith looks reality in the face and does not flinch.

Morning, Vex. Forget something?” She almost asked him what until she saw the way his gaze smoldered and caressed her almost naked body. Oops. Had she jumped out of bed in only her panties? Nudity wasn’t something that Meena usually noted or cared about. Mother, on the other hand, was always yelling at her to put clothes on. She and Leo had a lot in common. “You should get dressed.” “Why? I’m perfectly comfortable.” So comfortable she brought her shoulders back and made sure to give her boobs a little jiggle. He noticed. He stared. Oh my. Was it getting hot in here? Funny how the heat in her body, though, didn’t stop her nipples from hardening as if struck by a cold breeze. Except, in this case, it was more of an ardent perusal. Did Leo imagine his mouth latched onto a sensitive peak just like she was? “While I am sure you are comfortable, if we’re to go out, then in order to avoid a possible arrest for indecent exposure, you might want to cover your assets.” “We’re going out? Together?” He nodded. “Where?” “It’s a surprise.” She clapped her hands and squealed, “Yay,” only to frown a second later. Leo was acting awfully strange. “Wait a second, this isn’t one of those things where you blindfold me and tell me you’ve got a great surprise, only to dump me on a twelve-hour train to Kansas, is it? Or a plane to Newfoundland, Canada?” His lips twitched. “No. I promise we have a destination, and I am going with you.” “And will I be back here tonight?” “Perhaps. Unless you choose to sleep elsewhere.” Those enigmatic words weren’t his last. “Be downstairs and ready in twenty minutes, Vex. I really want you to come.” Did he purr that last word? Was that even possible? Could he tease her any harder? Please. “How should I dress? Fancy, casual, slutty, or prim and proper?” She eyed him in his khaki shorts and collared short-sleeved shirt. Casual with a hint of elegance. He looked ready for a day at a gentleman’s golf club. And she wanted to be his corrupting caddy, who ruined his shot and dragged him in the woods to show him her version of a tee off. “Your clothes won’t matter. You won’t wear them for long.” Good thing she was close to a wall. Her knees weakened to the point that she almost buckled to the floor. Leaning against it, she wondered if he purposely teased her. Did her serious Pookie even realize how his words could be taken? He approached her until he stood right in front of her. Close enough she could have reached out and hugged him. She didn’t, but only because he drew her close. His essence surrounded her. His hands splayed over the flesh of her lower back, branding her. She leaned into him, totally relying on him to hold her up on wobbly legs. “What about breakfast?” she asked. “I’ve got pastries and coffee in my truck. Lots of yummy treats with lickable icing.” Staring at his mouth, she knew of only one treat she wanted to lick. Alas, she didn’t get a chance. With a slap on her ass, he walked off toward the condo door. Leo. Slapped. My. Ass. She gaped at his retreating broad back. “Don’t make me wait. I’d hate to start without you.” With a wink— yes, a real freaking wink— Leo shut the door behind him. He was waiting for her. Why the hell was she standing there? She sprinted for the shower.

Wakey wakey, Vex. Aren’t you going to answer? It’s your mother, and this is the fourth time she’s called. Would you like me to tell her you’re indisposed?” Hold on a second. It didn’t take long for her bleary mind to grasp Leo was here. In her room. About to talk to her mother at— she squinted at her clock— seven in the morning. Eep. Her eyes shot open, but before she could flail an arm in his direction and demand the phone, he answered. “Meena’s phone. Can I help you?” She moaned, her super hearing meaning she heard her mother’s very polite, “Excuse me, but who are you, and why are you answering my daughter’s phone?” If this were Meena, she’d say something like “I’m a serial killer, and sorry, but your daughter is all tied up right now. Muahahaha.” Of course, the last time she did that, the SWAT team wasn’t impressed, and she wasn’t allowed to hang out with Mary Sue anymore. Trust her Pookie to stick to the truth. “I’m Leo.” “Hello, Leo. How are you today?” Her mother ever Miss Manners. “I am just purrrr-fect. Yourself?” “Um. Er. Would you mind passing the phone to Meena, please?” “I would, but she’s kind of… indisposed.” Did he just smirk at her as he said it? She frowned. He grinned. It was a sexy grin, a mischievous grin, but that still didn’t prepare her for him saying, “How about I get her to call you back once we’ve located her clothes? With my help, I’m sure I can get her dressed in no time. Or not.” How low and husky he said it, his eyes boring into hers, wicked promise within them. Of course, that wicked promise would have to wait, given what he’d just said to her mother! “Are you insane?” she mouthed. “If I’m insane, then it’s totally your fault,” he replied, aloud. Uh-oh. “Peter! I need you now!” Her mother forgot her manners and yelled for Meena’s dad. Not good. So not good. Poor Leo. And she liked him so much. Even if it was only going to be a verbal barrage, she still yanked the covers over her head so she wouldn’t have to witness the carnage as her daddy came on the line. Unfortunately, she could still hear it. “Who the fuck is this, and what are you doing with my daughter?” Daddy didn’t bother with niceties. “Hello, sir, I’m Leo, the omega for the pride harboring your daughter while her spot of trouble blows over. As to what I’m doing with your daughter, I am trying to keep her out of trouble, but not succeeding very well so far. She has a knack it seems for causing disasters.” Familiar laughter boomed. “That’s my baby girl.” At least her father didn’t see the havoc that followed her as a problem. Mother wailed she’d never get married if she didn’t start to act like a proper lady. “As to my presence with your daughter, just keeping an eye on her. We’ve run into a issue with an old beau following her here.” “That Russian prick showed up?” “Indeed. And events have escalated where I fear there is only one thing to do. It’s drastic, but inevitable. ” The click of the door cut off the rest of that conversation. What the hell? She poked her head out, only to note her bedroom was empty. While Meena hid under the covers, Leo had wandered away. Still talking to my father. That couldn’t bode well.

While we were absent from Rochester on this eastern tour the foreman of the Office was attacked with cholera. He was an unconverted young man. The lady of the house where he boarded died with the same disease, also her daughter. He was then brought down and no one ventured to take care of him, fearing the disease. The Office hands watched over him until the disease seemed checked, then took him to our house. He had a relapse and a physician attended him and exerted himself to the utmost to save him, but at length told him that his {296} case was hopeless, that he could not survive through the night. Those interested for him could not bear to see the young man die without hope. They prayed around his bedside while he was suffering great agony. He also prayed that the Lord would have mercy upon him, and forgive his sins. Yet he obtained no relief. He continued to cramp and toss in restless agony. The brethren continued in prayer all night that he might be spared to repent of his sins and keep the commandments of God. He at length seemed to consecrate himself to God, and promised the Lord he would keep the Sabbath and serve him. He soon felt relief. The next morning the physician came, and as he entered, said, ‘I told my wife about one o’clock this morning that in all probability the young man was out of his trouble.’ He was told that he was alive. The physician was surprised and immediately ascended the stairs to his room, and as he examined his pulse, said, ‘Young man, you are better, the crisis is past, but it is not my skill that saved you, but a higher power. With good nursing you may get about again.’ He gained rapidly, and soon took his place in the Office, a converted man. 

Without constant restoration we are not ready for the perpetual assaults of hell, or the stern afflictions of heaven, or even for the strifes within. When the whirlwind shall be loosed, woe to the tree that has not sucked up fresh sap, and grasped the rock with many intertwisted roots. When tempests arise, woe to the mariners that have not strengthened their mast, nor cast their anchor, nor sought the haven. If we allow the good to grow weaker, the evil will surely gather strength and struggle desperately for the mastery over us; and so, perhaps, a painful desolation, and a lamentable disgrace may follow. Let us draw near to the footstool of divine mercy in humble entreaty, and we shall realize the fulfillment of the promise, "Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.

Jane passed by the library. There in a corner sat Inflexibility. He raised his eyes when he heard her footfalls. “Oh,” said Jane, antsy with embarrassment. “Good morning, Mr. Nobley.” “You weren’t at breakfast,” he said. “I’m off.” She indicated her bonnet and spencer jacket. “Just saying good-bye to the house. It’s a lovely old house.” “New, actually. Built in 1809.” “Right.” His insistence on maintaining the charade chafed her. She had a surging and ridiculous desire to plop down beside him and shake him and make him talk to her like a real person. “Well, since I ran into you, I can thank you in person for a great vacation. I feel sort of sheepish that it didn’t turn out differently.” Mr. Nobley shrugged, and she was surprised to detect anger in his eyes. Still playing the jilted man? Or had she wounded his actor’s ego? Maybe he was denied a paycheck bonus for not getting engaged. “It has been a pleasure to have you here, Miss Erstwhile. I might miss you, actually.” “Really?” “It is possible.” “Hey, I’ve been wondering something…What is Mr. Nobley’s first name?” “William. You know, you are the first person to ask.” Any further awkwardness was cut off by the sound of an approaching carriage. Jane stepped out the front door for the last time, and she and Amelia, gratefully and mournfully, took their leave. Aunt Saffronia stood by the door, waving her handkerchief and shedding rather impressive tears. Colonel Andrews strolled out to wave good-bye with the stately line of house servants in their white caps and white wigs. Captain East smiled knowingly, his eyes earnest with whatever fake promises he and Amelia had made. Mr. Nobley didn’t bother to join the farewell.

They say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Oh, it is not just paved but more engraved with our pinky promises and solemn vows. We give our word to be more frugal with our credit cards, to commit to those yoga classes in the morning or to finally reach the appointment for sight testing scheduled one month ago. Well, I think some black magic is going around or dementors have been knocking on our doors lately because all these promises become vanished over night. Giving up our long-term projects and ideas for that sweet flavor of immediate gratification, my friends, this is not called Alohomora but procrastination. Seriously now, why do we lose the battle against procrastination leaving the lava flow of emotions taking over our plans so frequently?

Michaels pushed up into Judge’s groin, seeking out his harness. “It’s a little after four,” he rasped. Judge gave Michaels what he sought. Both of them moaning at the sensation of their erections grinding together. He needed to get up and take watch. Michaels gripped his waist and pulled on him harder. What the hell, they had a little time. No one was doing anything at four in the morning. Judge leaned in and went for Michaels’ neck with his mouth, still not able to kiss those luscious lips. He licked across that lump in the center of his throat with the flat of his tongue, tasting the cleanness. “You taste so good,” he moaned, pushing his erection into the hard thigh he was straddling. “Then take a real taste,” Michaels dared. Did Michaels really want to kiss him? Judge was seriously considering it. He hadn’t kissed anyone in years; maybe he wasn’t even good at it anymore. He braced himself on his forearms, hovering over Michaels’ face, his lips so close. Michaels grinned at him and brought a hand up to press down on his shoulder. Pressing and pressing until Judge finally got the hint. “A real taste.” Michaels smirked. Asshole. He wasn’t talking about a kiss at all. He wanted Judge’s mouth further down. Judge quirked his eyebrow at the ballsy request. “Suck it, Judge. It’ll taste good. I promise you.” Michaels flirted, tucking one arm behind his head while the other grazed back and forth over his own nipples. Sexy

Tall, muscular, and broad-shouldered, he’d been an obvious hire for the railroad company, but the recruiter had looked at his young wife’s protruding belly and had wanted to hire only him. Disgusted to have to play such games, she batted her eyelashes and, a convincing smile lighting up her pretty face, flexed the muscles of her right arm for show: “I promise, I am a good worker.” She signed the paperwork along with her husband. And cried herself to sleep that night. Something tragic was waiting for them. There had been signs. Only hours after she’d been hired, she had seen warning in the pueblo curandera’s eyes. “Will you please bless my babies?” she had asked when she arrived at the curandera’s home with her toddler daughter in tow. “Of course,” the curandera had said, and invited them in. “Sit, please.” She motioned to her one chair and then to the clean-swept dirt floor beside it for the girl. The curandera kneeled in front my father’s mother. One hand on her pregnant round stomach, the other hand on the little girl’s head, the old woman closed her eyes and breathed slowly, the deep wrinkles of her face smoothing as she concentrated. This quiet stillness continued for minutes. And then: “No!” The curandera yanked her hands away as if she’d felt fire. “The baby?” my father’s mother asked nervously, her hands moving in an instinctive, protective gesture to her middle. “It is a boy,” the curandera said. And then she stared at the little girl and refused to say more. The next morning, the curandera visited my father’s mother. “This is for the girl,” she said, and handed over three slices of candied sweet yam. “Give her some each night before she sleeps.

I’ll pay you two thousand dollars if you stall.” Mitch blinked, surprised to hear the words that had just come out of his mouth. “What?” Tommy asked, his own surprise clear in his tone. “I will pay you two grand to stall the repair,” he repeated, ignoring the little voice in his head telling him this was wrong. If there was another way, he’d take it, but every other option had variables. And he couldn’t risk variables. “And how long am I supposed to do that?” Mitch calculated how much time he could get away with while not raising Maddie’s suspicions. The small-town thing would only get him so far before it became unbelievable. “Can you make it the end of the week?” If he pushed it until Friday, maybe he could convince her to stay through the weekend instead of making her way back home. That gave him about a week. One week, then he’d let the chips fall where they may. “So let me get this straight, you’re going to pay me two thousand dollars to let the car sit in my garage for a week?” “Plus the cost of the repair,” Mitch added, knowing Maddie would insist on paying for the car herself. “I’ll bring her in this morning, and you tell her the repair will be three to four hundred but will take until Friday to fix. I’ll pay you two thousand dollars on the side.” “You’ve got a real hard-on for this girl.” Tommy laughed, repeating Charlie’s sentiment from last night. “Never mind that. And for fuck’s sake, don’t tell your wife.” It was only right to point out that Tommy was the pussy-whipped one, not him. “Now, that’s going to cost you a little more,” Tommy said in a thoughtful tone. Mitch narrowed his eyes. “You’re telling me two grand isn’t enough?” “It’s plenty for me, but Mary Beth’s silence will cost you something extra.” Ah, hell. He was about to get hustled and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. “Don’t tell her and we won’t have a problem.” Tommy made disapproving sounds, and Mitch could practically see the big, blond ex-captain of the football team rocking back and forth on his chair. “Now, you know I can’t. A good marriage is built on honesty.” Mitch’s grip tightened on his mug, and he silently cursed. “You don’t give a shit that your wife carries your balls in her purse, do you?” Tommy’s chuckle was pure evil. “It’s a small price to pay for matrimonial bliss.” Mitch tried to think of a way out, but for the life of him he couldn’t see one. Between lack of sleep and deprived blood flow, his normally agile mind failed. “And this is nonnegotiable?” “Well, I’m reasonable.” Tommy’s voice took on the tone of a resigned man. “But, you know Mary Beth, and she does like her gossip.” Everyone in town would know about the plot by noon, and as much as Mitch wanted to delude himself, he didn’t think Maddie would stay locked in the house for a week. “Fine.” Mitch ground out through clenched teeth. “I’ll look at your nephew’s case. But I’m not making any promises.” Mary

June 2012               Dearest Andy, You haven’t changed much over the years. I’m glad we can continue to relate to each other after such a long absence. Times of change had not vanquished my love for you either. You are always in my heart and I’ll continue to cherish your love wherever I am. You haven’t heard the last of Bernard – at one time, he arrived to visit me at Uncle James. I had no idea he was in London when he showed up one afternoon. I had been out running a couple of errands. As I was unlocking the front door, I felt a tap on my shoulder and Bernard was behind me, looking as handsome as when we parted in Belfast. He had grown taller and more mature during our absence. In Ireland he had worked some odd jobs to earn enough money for a one-way plane ticket to London. The only person he knew in London was me. He knew I would not turn him away if he called. Uncle James was in Hong Kong and I was the only one staying in the house; I took the boy in, making him promise that he would have to leave when I moved in 3 weeks to my new lodgings in Ladbroke Grove. He did as promised and was a splendid house guest. When Uncle James returned a week before my move, he was charmed by the adolescent. Bernard made a good impression on Uncle James. The boy had run away from Belfast and planned a fresh start in London. During the course of the 3 weeks, he successfully secured himself as a newspaper delivery boy in the mornings and also worked part-time in a Deli near the house. To top it off, five evenings a week he was a bus boy in an Italian restaurant. Both Uncle James and I were impressed by his industrious tenacity. James decided to help him obtain an apprenticeship with a professional photographer in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Caught off guard by my question, he looked confused. He did his best to look composed. “I’m not Singaporean,” I stated. “If they expel me, I’ll return to England where I can be who I am.”               My line of reasoning seemed to relieve his anxiety somewhat. “Will you promise to keep a secret if I confide in you?” he muttered.               “Off course, mate. You can tell me anything. Anything at all. I’m good at keeping secrets.” I made the sign of a cross with my hand to show my sincerity.               Kim whispered, “Some years ago, my American uncle came to Singapore to visit us. We shared the same room.”               He continued, “When he slept in his underwear next to me, I was enthralled by his butchness. I turned on my side in an attempt to hide my arousal. In the wee hours of the night, he would sprout an erection.               “I was afraid and confused, yet extremely excited. I masturbated quietly, while desiring to touch the hardness that had peeked out from his brief. I couldn’t fall asleep until I jerked off.               “One night while wanking, his hand moved up my thigh. Before long, he was jerking my dick. I reciprocated. “In the morning, there was no mention of what transpired. But we would play by night and pretend nothing unusual had happened by day.

I’m sorry, but you didn’t make me promise not to worry.” With a big sigh, Jenna said, “Okay, but after this, you have to promise that, too.” “Deal,” Sara said, smirking. After seeing how much and how violently Jenna had been sick not all that many hours ago, Easy was sympathetic to Sara’s worrying.“I’ll clean up this stuff and give you all some privacy,” he said, reaching for the tray. “Thanks for getting dinner for us, Easy,” Jenna said. She looked at him with such gratitude and affection that it both set off a warm pressure in his chest and made him self-conscious—because he was acutely aware that Sara was observing them. She had to know that something was going on. Given how little he thought of himself sometimes, it wasn’t a big leap to imagine others would think the same. Just because Sara had seemed appreciative that he’d helped Jenna didn’t mean she’d approve of anything more. “You know, you set off a milk-shake-making party,” Becca said. Sara laughed. “Yeah. Shane made us shakes, then we took them over to the gym, and Nick was all jealous he didn’t have one.” Grinning, Becca rolled her eyes. “Which was hilarious because he didn’t even know they owned a blender.” Easy stood. “Well, I guess I’m glad I could provide such a valuable service.” He winked and looked at Jenna. “Need anything else while I’m downstairs?” Smiling, she shook her head. “Don’t think so, but thanks.” Easy made his way out of the room and back down to the Rixeys’, where he found all the guys in front of the big flat-screen TV—Nick and Marz kicking back in the recliners, Beckett and Shane sprawled on one couch, and Jeremy and Charlie on the other, with Eileen between them. It was dark in the room except for the flickering light of the screen. A round of greetings rose to meet him. “Sexual Chocolate!” Marz yelled over the others. Easy couldn’t help but smile as his gaze settled on the television, where the classic Eddie Murphy movie Coming to America was playing. One of Easy’s all-time favorites. He placed the tray on the counter, then turned and held his hands out. “Good morning, my neighbors!” he said, mimicking one of the prince’s lines. Right on cue, Marz said in a thick New York accent, “Hey, fuck you!” Easy could quote this movie all day. “Yes, yes! Fuck you, too!” The guys all chuckled, and Easy leaned his butt against the arm of the couch next to Jeremy and got sucked into the movie. Jeremy and Charlie made room for him, and it felt damn good to be with the guys. Not working, not stressed, not under fire. Just kicking back and shooting the shit.

The rather blurred background to the face that formed over the vid plate seemed faintly familiar—ah yes, the Security Ops room at Ryoval Biologicals. Baron Ryoval had arrived personally on that scene as promised. It took only one glance at the dusky, contorted expression on Ryoval's youthful face to fill in the rest of the scenario. Miles folded his hands and smiled innocently. "Good morning, Baron. What can I do for you?" "Die, you little mutant!" Ryoval spat. "You! There isn't going to be a bunker deep enough for you to burrow in. I'll put a price on your head that will have every bounty hunter in the galaxy all over you like a second skin—you'll not eat or sleep—I'll have you—" Yes,