Women Are A Gift

Women are truly a gift. They are sensitive from within, yet can choose to be strong. Even if they are having a bad day, they can do the extreme opposite just so that everyone around them is happy.

A woman is blessed with distinct and exceptional characteristics and most of all she has the privilege to play a remarkable role of being a mother, all of which has been bestowed upon her by our loving Father.

Every woman deserves to know her true worth. It is of great significance that she can be capable enough to find herself and the ideal way is through prayer and the relationship she shares with God.

The word of God will not only guide her to know her in a better form but also gives her the endeavors to lead a prosperous life.

Women are not designed by mistake or accident but because God willed them to be created and bestowed on them unique graces and gifts.

Elizabeth Arden wrote,” Every woman has the right to be beautiful “. But I say every woman is BEAUTIFUL.

What every woman needs to truly understand is that there is so much more to them than how the world sees them. They are unique, inspiring, beguiling, innovative and filled with so much of fortitude,

So don’t shy away from the world, embrace the true you. Be your idea of beautiful. Cut all those trivial strings. And finally, do what makes you happy because you deserve the best.

Happy Women’s Day!

You can also visit our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3zd8k4c4c8 for a video on why Women Are A Gift

WELCOME CHANGE AS AN OPPORTUNITY

No one can deny the fact that the circumstances under which we live do change not merely from time to time but from moment to moment and, rightly, we do manage to adapt ourselves to those changes. If our adaptation is right, that’s a good opportunity for us to experience the joy of delightful happenings in our lives.

On the other hand, if our adaptation is wrong, our lot cannot but be the experience of bitterness resulting from painful happenings in our lives. Nido Qubein, the noted American motivational speaker, has rightly said, “Change brings opportunity” – a fact no one can argue about! But do changes always give us opportunities that will honour what is in our minds and take us in that direction?

That of course depends upon — as said earlier — the manner in which we respond to the changes. If the manner is right, the changes will provide us success-opportunities. But if the manner is wrong, the changes will provide us only failure-opportunities.

And so it is that we need to be constantly be aware that change per se never fails to bring with it immense opportunities as well as risks. When the risk is faced and handled judiciously, the opportunity ends in success and jubilation. But if the risk takes the upper hand because we are unable to handle it prudently, opportunity is bound to end up only in failure and frustration.
There will be none to oppose the fact that suitable adaptation to changes is very important in our lives. We must hence learn to adapt ourselves in such a way that whatever happens post-adaptation, happens for our good and the good of everyone around us. That must be our firm belief. We should not at all be afraid of changes. Not all changes are demons, though, most of them coming only as angels. It will not be an exaggeration to say that it is in our hands to make changes act like an-gels or demons.
We must develop a strong belief that changes are always for our good and that they cannot do us harm unless we permit them to do so. In other words if we handle them as we ‘learn to adapt. Things change, circumstances change. Adjust yourself and your efforts to what is presented to you so you can respond accordingly. Never see change as a threat, because it can be an opportunity to learn, to grow, evolve and become a better person.”

This excerpt is taken from the book ‘ Opportunities to Grow and Glow’ by S.Devaraj. For more information on the book : Click Me!

Lift Your Gaze Above

Have you herd about the man who once found a $10 bill on the roadway? From then on he kept his eyes fastened on the ground looking for money. Over his lifetime he found 26 dollar bills, a few fives, and a couple more tens, plus countless pennies, nickels and dimes. But along the way, he missed 4235 sunrises and sunsets and never helped anyone who might have been in need along the way. He missed happy children at play and many other experiences of joy.

It is for the person who lifts his/her eyes above the ground, above the mundane and earthbound, and looks to the heavens, that life brings fulfillment greater than found coins.

George Eliot: “The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone”

Gold medals aren’t really made of gold; they’re made of sweat, determination, and a hard-to-find alloy called guts.                                                                                                         -Dan Gable

“Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly st about remedying them – every day, begin the task anew.”                                                                 – Saint Francis de Sales

Flow McCarthy has given us the following story. Once there was a miser who accumulated a large amount of money, and was looking forward to years of happy living. However, before he could make up his mind as to how best to spend his money, the Angel of Death appeared before him to take his life away.

The miser pleaded with the angel to be allowed a little longer. ‘Give me three days of life and I will give you half of my fortune,’ he begged. But the angel wouldn’t hear of it and began to tug at his cloak. ‘Give me one day, I beg of you,’ said the miser,’ and you can have everything I have accumulated through so much sweat and toil.’ But the angel refused his request.

The miser managed to wring just one small concession from the angel – a few moments in which to write down this note: ‘ Oh you, whoever you are that happen to find this note, if you have enough to live on, don’t waste your time accumulating fortune. Live! My fortune couldn’t buy me a single hour of life.’

Rabindranath Tagore: “Money and power can imprison and inhibit just as effectively as barred windows and iron chains. ‘Set a bird’s wings with gold and it will never fly.”

Saint Paul: “Set your mind on things that are abpve, not on things that are on earth.” [Colossians 3:2]

Don’t beat yourself; beat your record.

While winning is everything, it’s always the process that will give you your future!

Many years ago, Arthur Gordon wrote in a national magazine: “When I was around thirteen and my brother ten, our father had promised to take us to the circus. But at lunchtime there was a phone call; some urgent business required his attention downtown. We braced ourselves for disappointment. Then we heard him say into the phone, “No, I won’t be down.It’ll have to wait.”

When he came back to the table, Mother smiled and said: “The circus keeps coming back, you know.” “I know,” said father. “But childhood doesn’t.”

A dream doesn’t come true by itself; we must pull it.

This Excerpt is taken from the book ‘Live Inspired Always’ by John Pichappilly. For more information on the book: Click here! 

 

 

He Dared to Do More!

Twenty years ago Shakil Ahmed was a dropout. Today he heads the NGO Nirbhay Bano Andolan, empowering people and making them conscious of their rights and, I guess, their duties, too. “We want to empower people, so that they can fight their own battles. We want them to lead fearless lives,” says Ahmed.
Shakil’s family, hailing from Andhra Pradesh, had come to Mumbai in search of livelihood. When Shakil was hardly twelve, and had just completed Std VII, the family returned to Andhra. The result — Shakil became a dropout. But the hero within Shakil refused to give up. He recalls, “I always wanted to do something for the society, and so I desired to continue with my studies.” Ahmed ran away from home, returned to Mumbai and joined his uncle in his scooter-repairing shop. Simultaneously, he pursued his studies and completed his Std X privately.

Later he took up a part-time job with a scrap dealer, pursuing law studies. Eventully, he became a lawyer. Ahmed now spends most of his time spearheading a movement that takes on the establishment, fearlessly defending citizens rights, spreading awareness about injustice done to ordinary people.

Pressing for the implementation of the Srikrishn Commission Report (recommendations) in Maharashtra, was one of his pet projects. Nirbha Bano Andolan was possibly the only NGO followin up the Gundewar Commission Report which found police guilty of killing 11 Dalits in Rambhai Colon (Ghatkopar) in Mumbai. “When the officers named as guilty in the report were promoted, we put up posters all over protesting the move and spreading awareness about the gross injustice.” He has also led groups of women protesting outside illegal liquor shops, he has written to national and international human rights group calling their attention to atrocities committed o defenceless people. Ahmed refused to be silenced. Nay, he wanted to do more. With this in mind, he did a one year diploma in journalism at Garware Institute of Mumbai University.

Ahmed is one who has discovered the light within. He lets it shine. Violence and atrocities of all kinds are on the rise in our country that once prided itself as the land of Buddha, Ashoka and Gandhi: once known the world over as the seat of world religions and their great ideals of compassion and Ahimsa.

Shakil is someone who dared to be different! We need to raise our voices in unison, particularly the youth in our country, as Ahmed did and still does, against evil that raises its ugly head in the form of communal passion and violence.

This Excerpt is taken from the book ‘You can make a difference’ by Alfonso Elengikal. For more information about the book: Click Me!

Every Failure An Opportunity To Begin Afresh

I am a retired postgraduate teacher in mathematics. As a  student I still remember how I used to take up unsolved problems and enjoy solving them. There were moments when I was unable to get the solution right. Without getting upset or discouraged I used to keep trying until I arrived at a solution.
I looked upon every failure to arrive at the correct solution as a fresh chance to start all over again, not with a gloomy face but with an eager mind, an energetic heart and  an attitude of persistence. Like the great inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, every time I failed to get the answer right I understood which way if I proceeded I wouldn’t be able to get the answer and, like  him again, also used to feel excited and thrilled about starting once again my search for the solution. I always d it a pleasurable exercise. It was more like playing and-seek with the needed solution!

Roger Von Oech, an American speaker, author and toy-maker whose focus has always been on the study of creativity, emphasizes the benefits and advantages of failures and setbacks in a person’s life thus: “Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”

Failures are God-given opportunities. Indeed, anything bad that happens in our lives can turn out to our benefit and advantage if we but decide to deal with it on a positive note and with hopeful expectation. Failures must not be looked upon as devil-sponsored tragedies. Like the plants which, if you trim, give out fresh and beautiful shoots, failures too are ready with their stretched out arms to give us fresh opportunities which, if pursued with greater confidence and diligence, are certain to help us succeed to an unbelievable level of excellence.

Henry Ford, an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production, has this to say regarding failure, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”
Failure is never a proof of our weakness. It is mostly a proof of a weak use of our
strong potentials. Hence our failures must open our eyes to the hugely untapped and untried world of the varied powers, skills, talents and abilities we possess.

This Excerpt is taken from the book ‘Opportunities to Grow and Glow’. If you would like to purchase this book: Click Here!

7 easy ways to take control of your life

Very often, we struggle with the challenges that life throws at us. This in turn takes us off track from our goals and dreams. Here are 7 ways to get back on track and make the best of what we have. This info-graphic is  inspired from the book Live Inspired Always 

Dare to talk about your affection

For fear of seeming sentimental, many of us hold back expressions of warmth and thereby miss out on rich and profound friendships. We say “thanks” when we mean ”God bless you,” and “so long” when we mean, “I’ll miss you a lot.” G. K. Chesterton mice said that the meanest fear is the fear of ‘sentimentality. It would add immeasurably to the ,amount of love abroad if we would be freer in declaring our affection. Jesus had a way of doing that. He ‘,did in a hundred different ways that he loved his disciples. There could have been no doubt in their minds of his affection.
Why are we so reluctant to say openly that we care for another? Several reasons. There is the possibility that our overture of warmth will not be reciprocated and we will be rejected. Or even worse, especially among men, we are afraid of being laughed at for our sentimentality. There are few emotions more frightening than embarrassment, and we go to great lengths to avoid even the possibility of it.

But those who are loved widely are usually those who throw caution to the winds and declare their love freely. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, was a man, and he was more sensitive to rejection than most. At one point in his career, stung by Hamilton’s victory over him in Washington, he shipped his books and furniture home to Monticello, cancelled his newspaper subscriptions, cut off his political contacts, and during the next thirty-seven months never stirred more than seven miles from home. Jefferson was that sensitive to ridicule.
Yet did his fear of embarrassment keep him from expressing his love when he felt it? Fawn M. Brodie, a Jefferson biographer, says: ”His letters to his two adult daughters, Martha and Maria, are so affectionate and so innocently seductive that they become an open window.” And writing to his cherished friend, John Adams, he could say in 1819 such “sentimental” things as: ”Take care of your health and be assured that you are most dear to me.”

This Excerpt is taken from the book “The Friendship Factor by Alan Loy McGinnis. The book has sold more than 1,000,000 copies in print already. For more information on the book – Click Me

WHEN BITTER TURNS SWEET

The sound of mother’s egg-beater drew me to the kitchen. There I found her at work, and began to watch. This was my chance to find out what she put into that chocolate cake of hers that made it so good.

She was baking chocolate, of course. I reached for a crumb that had fallen off the bar and put it on my tongue to dissolve. It was bitter! I surveyed the other things on the table. There was a cupful of sour milk. Yuck! Surely Mother wasn’t going to put that in the cake! But she did, along with some of that awful baking soda she had given me the last time I had a stomachache.What kind of cake could she possibly make out of such things, I couldn’t help think out aloud! Mother smiled and said to me: “Just wait and see!”

She served the cake that evening after dinner. It looked as good as usual, but I was going to be careful. I tasted a little crumb, then a larger crumb, and finally a whole bite. It couldn’t have been better! I forgot all about the sour milk and baking soda, and asked for another piece.

Reflection

Life is not all sweetness. Certainly all things are not good, but “all things work together for good”
(Romans 8:28). This is God’s promise to those who love Him. Day by day He is making you what He wants you to be, and He never puts anything into your life by mistake.

This Excerpt is taken from the book ‘ 40 Stories that Stir and Inspire’ complied by Saji Anthony. For more information about the book – Click Me 🙂

The Story of Prutha: The Extraordinary Painter

During one of my visits to Ahmadabad (Gujarat), I had the privilege of meeting a 14-year-old girl —Prutha Desai — then a Std IX student of Mount Carmel School. In fact, the main reason for my going to Ahmadabad was to meet Prutha!

Prutha was one of the young victims of the earthquake that shattered Gujarat, years ago. What makes Prutha special was the way she reacted to the tragedy that resulted in the amputation of her right arm, almost up to her shoulder. All this happened when Prutha was dreaming of becoming an artist (painter) of repute, once she finished her studies.

I literally stood up before Prutha and her mother who brought her to the Principal’s office to see me. “God takes away, at times, what he likes most. Probably he liked my right arm. We must respect His wishes. By taking away something, He always gives us so much more in return,” Prutha said with a great sense of pride that was reflected in her eyes, “I now realise that I can do the very same works with my left hand, as well.”

In fact, Prutha had already done some very good paintings with her left hand over the past two years, which were on display in different parts of Gujarat, and even in some major cities of India.When I think that the Gujarat tragedy happened when she was barely a girl of 12! I do not know how much support she received from her family and others. But her mother kept on saying to me that it was Prutha who kept up the morale of the family, in those difficult days.

Prutha’s dreams were clearly fixed in her mind. But she was equally prepared for the inevitable to happen. Nothing could upset her goals. She believed that God had a master plan for her and was willing to give God time, unlike many of us today!

This excerpt has been taken (and slightly modified) from the book  ‘You can make a difference’ by Fr Alfonso Elengikal. For more information on the book, click me 🙂

Whatever Happens Is For The Good

Once on a journey, a Rabbi and his students were refused hospitality in a certain town. Instead of being upset, the Rabbi said: “Whatever God does is for the good!” However, the group had to spend the night in a field. The Rabbi had bought a donkey, a rooster for waking him up early, and a lamp for studying scripture.

That evening as he was studying, a wind blew out his lamp. Then a cat pounced on his rooster and ate it. Finally, a prowling lion ate his donkey. The Rabbi’s reaction to all of this was: “Whatever God does is for the good!”

Late that night, marauding troops raided the town and took all its inhabitants captive. The next morning, the Rabbi and his students discovered what happened. Then he reminded his students: “Didn’t I tell you whatever God does is for the Good ? If the lamp would have been burning or if the rooster had crowed, or if the donkey brayed, we too, would have been taken captive.”

Reflection

If we realize that everything happens by design of  Divine Providence and that we cannot always see the full picture, we would have a much easier time coping and proceeding through life. And perhaps if we look closely, we may even at times understand how the things we perceive as negative are really for our good.

For more inspiring stories read the book 40 stories that stir and Inspire complied by Saji Anotony

Click on on the link for more info: Click Me 🙂