Inspirational Short Story, Female Fantasy Art, Relaxing Music

. . . ere it vanishes

Over the margin

After it, follow it,

Follow The Gleam.

-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It is difficult to find words for the "Gleam" we pursue. What it is, we are never too sure.

Inspirational Short Story, Female Fantasy Art, Relaxing Music

We see it best in our daily dreams, while we're staring out a window at nothing at all. Sometimes it appears between the words in a book; it is always sure to be there when we sit alone to write down our own thoughts.

We see it in the autumn woods, feel its heavy breathing in ocean waves. It is suddenly a skylark in flight, a falling leaf, a flower we have reluctantly picked.

It makes us feel sad but good. It is always luring us on, always beautiful.

Is it love? Success? Peace?

It may be any or all of these things, and we may find it through another person, or some talent we have, or a thing of beauty we stumble upon.

And it is there within us, always, waiting to be found.

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow,

for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.

-- Matthew 6:34

To worry about something ahead of time

is a waste of time and energy that could be better spent on living a full life today.

For instance, if we spend hours today worrying about an important test at school tomorrow, we can't very well concentrate on studying.

And if we lie awake tonight agonizing over what we don't know or haven't studied, we're going to be exhausted tomorrow when we take the test.

Wouldn't it be much better to focus on doing all we can today to prepare for the test, and then, knowing we've done our best, let go of it tonight and get a good night's sleep?

In fact, if we do that every day of the year, when a big test comes along, we'll know we're as ready as we can be, and won't have a thing to worry about.

What a relief it is to know we've done our best today and every day.

One will rarely err if extreme actions

be ascribed to vanity,

ordinary actions to habit,

and mean actions to fear.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Sometimes we begin to believe someone close to us is being mean deliberately. This may happen when a good friend suddenly stops inviting us to her house.

She may be scared to have others over because her parents are having problems, or for some other reason that has nothing to do with us.

But we often fear that it is because of something we said or did. We find ourselves becoming scared and pulling away.

If we ask for God's help in turning our fear around, we can overcome it and ask our friend why she stopped inviting us over.

Most times we will find that our friend had no idea her actions affected us the way they did.

We can then laugh at ourselves for our fears and applaud ourselves for overcoming them.

_______________

10/25/2024

Dividers from Hairfish's Net (dead link 07/04/2011)