Yesterday I received an email from a thoroughly bewildered father in El Salvador and it reads:

"I came across your blogspot, Gaze of the Soul, as I googled through spiritual topics...I admire your passion for spiritual things and your firm views on God, Christianity and salvation through Jesus Christ...My brilliant, intelligent, good and kind 17 year-old son was recently mutilated and killed by drugged men....May I ask you one question, "MISS OPHELIA JANE JULIA, WHERE WAS GOD WHEN MY SON WAS KILLED?"

DEAR SIR: I deeply appreciate you for sending that email to me. I want you to know that I completely understand and feel the pain and suffering you are going through right now over the recent death of your brilliant, good son and my sincere thoughts and prayers for comfort and strength are with you and your family. Your question echoes that of those who had passed through the same kind of bereavement that you are experiencing right now....Sometimes, even to a Christian, injustices of this kind are hard to fathom which often lead us to question Divine justice and interference. But to answer your question as to where was God when your son was killed, all I can say is....MY FRIEND, GOD WAS JUST WHERE HE WAS WHEN HIS OWN SON, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, WAS KILLED.

IN MEMORIAM

Shafileah Ahmed, 17 year-old Pakistan girl victim of an honor-killing in January last year in Warrington, UK. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-507020/Teenager-honour-killing-girl-dramatic-plea-help-died.html

World events, its cruelty, wickedness and total defiance of God is such a perplexing thing to a Christian, I must admit. Somehow, secular history does not explain the WHY of all what is happening. But divine history or the WORD OF GOD explains it and gives glory and honor to the Almighty God alone. May we as believers in Christ Jesus, even in the most adverse circumstances, would praise and thank God for He knows what He is doing and that He has promised that what He had begun to do, He will perform it until the day of Christ.

"Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance..."

~~Psalm 32:7~~

Have blessed and fruitful days ahead bloggers!

Sincerely,

Ophelia Jane Julia

BALLAD OF A MOTHER'S HEART

The night was dark, for the moon was young

And the stars were asleep and rare;

The clouds were thick, yet Youth went out

To see his maiden fair.

"Dear one," he pleaded as he knelt

Before her feet in tears

"My love is true, why have you kept me waiting

all these years?"

The maiden looked at him unmoved

It seemed and whispered low:

"Persistent Youth you have to prove

By deeds your love is true."

"There's not a thing I would not do

For you beloved," said he

"Then go," said she "to your mother dear

and bring her heart to me!"

Without another word, Youth left

And went to his mother dear

And opened her breast and took her heart

He did not shed a tear.

Then back to his maiden fair he ran,

Unmindful of the rain

But his feet slipped and down he fell

And loud he groaned with pain.

Still in his hand he held the prize

That would win his maiden's hand;

And suddenly he thought of his mother dear

So kind, so sweet, so fond

And then he heard a voice,

Not from his lips but all apart

"Get up," it said

"Were you hurt, child?"

It was his mother's heart.

"God tells us to honor our mother. And He does not set any limits to His command. Because she's our mom, we are to treat her with respect and love. Mothers don't always live up to our expectations. Sometimes, they experience hardships and challenges that affect their ability to offer what we need or want. Or, they might have a personal weakness that negatively impacts us or our families. But we are to follow the example of our heavenly Father, who loved us even though we didn't have any qualities that deserved His favor. God loved us when we were unlovable. We can express our gratitude to Him by giving unconditional love to our mother."
~~Pastor / Dr. Charles F. Stanley~~

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL MOTHER BLOGGERS!

"Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee;

How great Thou art, how great Thou art.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee;

How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

~~Stuart Kline~~

"So few people have any conception of what the grace of God really is. It is the wondrous, boundless love of God poured out upon us without stint or measure, not according to our deserving, but according to His infinite heart of love "which passeth knowledge", so unfathomable are its heights and depths. Put together all the tenderest love you know of, the deepest you have ever felt, and the strongest that has ever been poured out upon you, and heap upon it all the love of all the loving human hearts in the world, and then multiply it by infinity, and you will begin perhaps to have some faitn glimpses of who the love of God in Christ Jesus is."

~~Hannah Withal Smith~~

"Fly me up to where you are

beyond the distant star

I wish upon tonight to see you smile

If only for a while to know you're there

A breath away's not far

To where you are!"

~~L. Thompson & R. Marx~~

"You bring out my best, you can bring out my worst

You feed every hunger and leave me burning with thirst

And at the moment that I know that I"ll surely die

Your love is my fountain of life."

~~L. Greenwood~~

"Defenses conceal weaknesses, as graves and thick bottles conceal things that are buried. But though a defense may hide, it is not necessarily impenetrable, just as, though something is buried, it is not irretrievable."



"Every coincidence, improbable as it may seem in the real world, is probable and even predictable in the psyhe's hidden world. The psyche will look for what it wants in the real world; it will project what it needs into what is there."
"We assume that all human beings crave love and move toward it as instinctively as a plant inclines to the sun. But human nature can be perverted and love is too dangerously to want, in fact, it is too dangerous to want anything....but there comes a time when nature will not be denied, when, because we still "feel life at life's sources"..."






"The dead never change, because they are stopped in time. And if they remain always as they were at the moment of their death, everything about them remains as it was. Their memories can never change or fade. Because the dead are stopped, there can be no question of their forgetting, of their ceasing to love."



Those of us who love prose and poetry find in its pleasure, wisdom and inspiration. But even the best literature cannot be compared to the value of the words of the Bible. Imagine a despairing soul on the verge of suicide picking up a book of poetry and thumbing through its pages. It's highly unlikely that even the noble thoughts of Henry W. Longfellow or John Greenleaf Whittier, to say nothing of a modern poet like T.S Eliot, would inspire him to fall on his knees and cry out to God for mercy and grace. Poetry has its honored place in our culture. But human words, however creatively woven together, can never take the place of God's Word for...
A well-turned phrase and words that rhyme
Can give us inspiration,
Yet nothing but the Word of God
Can bring us His salvation.
~~Sper~~




Have a lovely and blessed weekend ahead bloggers!

Sincerely,
Ophelia



a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s:

oil on canvas image 1 - Lachrymae by Lord Leighton Fredric
oil on canvas image 2 - Invocation by Lord Leighton Fredric
oil on canvas image 3 - Clytie, 1892 by Lord Leighton Fredric
oil on canvas image 4 - Odalisque by Lord Leighton Fredric

Oil on canvas images were taken from http://www.illusionsgallery.com/

Featured excerpts quoted from: Introduction to Charlotte Bronte's Villette by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer

In My Dreams...Even If The Sun Refused To Shine...

"in my dreams i always see you soar above the sky

in my heart there'll always be

a place for you for all my life

i'll keep a part of you with me

and everywhere i am there you'll be"

~~From There You'll Be, Love Theme from Pearl Harbor by Faith Hill~~

and even if the sun refused to shine

even if romance ran out of rhyme

you would still have my heart

until the end of time

you're all i need my love, my valentine

~~From My Love, My Valentine recorded and sung by Martina Mc Bride~~

"Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it...

for love is strong as death..."

~~Song of Solomon 8: 7, 6~~

"He who is in his innermost being doesn't possess the qualities to live happily is subjected to the insults of all Ages. He who finds within himself the roots of goodness cannot perceive as bad that which is imposed by natural necessities."

~~Cicero~~

Wish you all blessed days ahead bloggers!

Sincerely,

Ophelia

One Day

I want to tell You Lord
Of the love I have for You
I'm trying to express
The things You are, the things You do
I've searched the book of rhymes
Looking for words to say, nothing comes to mind
That in any way ever could describe
The love that burns inside
And how life's complete with You.

One day, one day with You and life begins again
Like water to a dry and thirsty land
It's just one day with You
One day, the world will see how great Your love has been
I'll never go back to that world again
After one day with You.

The more I get to know You, Lord
The more I find You true
I try to share with others
That they will know You too
No matter where I go Your love will always stay
Hold me even though I fall along the way
We will never part, You are in my heart
Always there to pull me through.

One day, one day with You and life begins again
Like water to a dry and thirsty land
It's just one day with You
One day, the world will see how great Your love has been
I'll never go back to that world again
After one day with You.

When our heart is full of love to Jesus, His loveliness becomes the passion of the soul, and sin and self are swept away. We start aligning our desires, our will and our life to God. We and God then become agreed in life desires, life purposes, life plans and work them out together. Thus, through all the misfortunes of our life, whenever we are faced with the gravest problems imaginable, we will be totally abandoned and so forced to depend entirely on God's resources. (Ophelia)

Have blessed days ahead Bloggers!