[Faith-talk] Have You Ever Wondered?

[Paul Smith]

Here is your article for today, taken from a booklet entitled 
Reflective Moments.  Hope you find the questions mentioned herein 
thought-provoking as well as a blessing.

Have you ever wondered which hurts the most, saying something and 
wishing you hadn't, or saying nothing and wishing you had?

I guess the most important things are the hardest things to say.

Don't be afraid to tell someone you love them.  If you do, they might 
break your heart; if you don't, you might break theirs.

Have you ever decided not to become a couple because you were so afraid 
of losing what you already had with that person? Your heart decides 
whom it likes and whom it doesn't.

You can't tell your heart what to do.  It does it on its own, when you 
least suspect it, or even when you don't want it to.

Have you ever wanted to love someone with everything you had, but that 
other person was too afraid to let you?

too many of us stay walled up because we are too afraid to care too 
much, for fear that the other person does not care as much, or even at all.

Have you ever denied your feelings for someone because your fear of 
rejection was too hard to handle?

We tell lies when we are afraid, afraid of what we don't know, afraid 
of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us.  
But every time we tell a lie, the thing we fear grows stronger.

Life is all about risks and it requires you to jump.  Don't be a person 
who has to look back and wonder what they would have done, or could have had.

What would you do if every time you fell in love you had to say goodbye?

What would you do if every time you wanted someone they would never be there?

What would you do if your best friend died tomorrow and you never got 
to tell them how you felt, even if it is that you don't care anymore?

What would you do if you loved someone more than ever and you couldn't 
have them?

What would you do if you never got the chance to say I am friends with 
all of my family and they know I love them?

People live, but people die.  And I want to tell you that you are a 
friend.  If you died tomorrow (God forbid), you would be in my heart.  
Would I be in yours?

The foregoing for me was so intimate, personal and private when I first 
read it that I literally had to stop and think for at least an hour 
after reading it for the first time.  Don't know about you, but I was 
glad to share these thoughts by an unknown author with you.

Before I close, a praise report is in order.  Don't know if the name of 
Thomas Williamson rings a bell for you, but in case it does the praise 
report is that his wife Linda, after about two years of hospitalization 
and rehabilitation, has finally come home to join her husband.  I had 
the chance yesterday and today to talk with her, and she sounded very 
enthusiastic on both occasions.  To those of you who don't know either 
Thomas or Linda, you have to believe me that they are the most 
"together" couple I've ever known.  They are from Jackson, Mississippi.

And that will do it for today.  Until tomorrow when, Lord willing an 
article featuring a little girl will be posted, may the God of Abraham, 
Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in 
these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul