I'm sitting here this morning with fresh thoughts of conversations I've had, reading a letter from a 22 year old girl that suffered horrific abuse, and went into prostitution, and by the miracle of God called the hotline I work on, and now two weeks later, I read these lines from her last correspondence to me -

"I like this vers dont worry about tomrrow for tomrrow will bring it own worries. Todays trouble is enough for today.... I am really start it like matthews i feel like it talking to me."

  The tears just come like a flood and I can scarcely see, as I feel her little broken, damage and abandoned heart, begin to hear the voice of God, is there a greater miracle? No, there ain't no grave that can hold that body down! No oppressive evil that can steal the soul that Jesus calls, and heals. What a Savior! What a joy divine!

  "Have you ever considered what a deep under meaning there lies in our custom of strewing flowers before those whom we think most happy So you suppose it is merely to deceive them into the hope that happiness is always to fall thus in showers at their feet? --that wherever they pass they will tread on herbs of sweet scent, and that the rough ground will be made smooth for them by depth of roses? So surely as they believe that, they will have, instead, to walk on bitter herbs and thorns; and the only softness to their feet will be snow. But there is a better meaning in that old custom. The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers: but they rise behind her steps, not before them. "Her feet have touched the meadows, and left the daisies rosy." John Ruskin.

  "I aim at making thought a little clearer, hope a little brighter; at disentangling some of the complex fibers of beauty and interest which are interwoven into the fabric of life. I try to put down very plainly some of the things that have helped me, some of the sights that have pleased me, some of the thoughts that have fed me. I speak, if I may say so, without conceit, just as a bird will sing, careless who listens to it. If the people who wander in the garden do not like the song, the garden is mine as well as theirs; they need not listen, or they can scare the bird with ugly gestures out of his bush if they choose." A. Benson.

  I really like this quote, I suppose it clarifies the purpose of my blog as much as anything. 

I also hope my blog is an example of Christian thought and expression, removing some boundaries, reminding, in addition, things lost or forgotten. 

"If the God that you beheld in imagination when you were converted, before whom you fell down rejoicing, and to whom you surrendered yourself, is the best that you have, woe to you! You have not grown since you came out of the nursery, and you stand in the orchard of truth without growth. A true man has a better and better God every year."

H. W. Beecher

The crying sin of modern parents is their unwillingness to let their children grow. They wish to transform them all at once from prattling infants into immortal geniuses. They have more faith in art than in Nature, in books and schoolrooms than in brooks and groves.  Charles E. Sargent M.A.

I started working a Christian Hotline in January and it has been an experience only this post can express. Here is a conversation that the founder of the hotline and I had this week.

Fred,  

Thanks for all of your encouragement and for sharing the email with me. Great to hear from you.

By the way, i have been meaning to let you know that one of the young ladies you chatted with said some very nice things about you on our FB page...here is what she said, 

"Thank you yall have help me. the person i talk to name Fred he amazing he help me tonight. i was sad and hurting might end up killing my self or other worse i talk to him he help me i feel better

Thanks for all you do."

Her Facebook name is Lanna

Lanna!, Oh Sean, this girl is very special to me; she was raised in abuse, both verbal, physical and sexual, after her father abandoned her at 11, she lived with her mother, who had men over all the time and one in particular that was 55 when Lana was 13 and began having sex with Lana and all the mom said was, “I don't care what you do just don't do it in my bed."

 DHS took Lana from the home and she went into Foster care, when emancipated she had no education, no skills so she went into prostitution, and somewhere along the way, she saw a "Groundwire" video, kept the number, and months later, at 22, she called the line and God graced me with the call. That was two weeks ago; now see what Jesus has done in two weeks, here is her last email to me --- 

"I think god awnswer my preys. So i been haveing dream about my mom. Who i have not talk to or seen since i was like 16. I ask my sister if she was ok she said yea. I inbox my mom on facebook she told me she been ill for over a year but getting better. So today we been talking i was able kind of tell her how i feel and was able tell her i forgive her. That i wanted to bulid a relationship with her. She told me that she love me and always will so i am hope for a relationship."

 "With men, it is impossible, but with God all things are possible."