Inspirational Short Story, Female Fantasy Art, Relaxing Music

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.

-- Sigmund Freud

The truth is our friend. It is a rough and humble kind of friend -- but a friend nonetheless.

Each of us will need to learn to spend time with this friend because it is one that is not easy to escape.

It is always turning up when we least expect it. The truth about ourselves is hard to avoid.

It seems to knock at our door until we let it in.

Perhaps we have played the game of hide and seek sometime in our lives.

Sometimes we tell little lies about ourselves to impress others, or we act in ways that, deep down, we know are not really the way we want to be.

We can never be comfortable this way.

We know what it is like to hide and try to keep from being found.

The truth about us is an expert player. It seeks us out until we put our arms around it and welcome it.

Nature, the Gentlest Mother,

is Impatient of no Child . . .

-- Emily Dickinson

When a girl sits on the seashore, the waves do not try to slap her around.

When a boy wanders alone in a field, the sky does not accuse him of talking back.

When a man is alone in the woods, does the earth nag him for failing once more?

And when a woman is alone in the park, does the wind whisper behind her back?

Nature never blames or condemns: she gives us freedom of thought and plenty of space.

Nature's ways are proven and true; she lets us grow at our own rate.

Nature brings us sleep, dawn, new days; she is full of new life.

We are a part of nature, and everything we do is part of it.

We can find comfort in this knowledge, if we take the time to remember it when we are feeling bad. Nature is always willing to share its serenity.

-- Kahlil Gibran

Family members show love and concern for others through their work.

Parents might build a bookcase or prepare the meals.

Children might help by emptying the wastebaskets.

All are showing love through what they do.

In our lives together, our work is an important way of saying I love you.

We will still want to give them lots of hugs and kisses.

But our work shows how much we care, and who is important to us.

Our work around the house is an investment. It makes a home for all of us, constructed of visible love.

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10/26/2024

Dividers from Shrubbery's Graphic Collection (dead link 12/29/2009) and Graphics By Sharon (dead link 06/20/2011)

( Permission to use the copyrighted images of Jean-Paul Avisse is licensed from Prestige Art Galleries, Inc. )