Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher- Recipe For A Long, Good Marriage

Marriage is not easy, that's why so many end in divorce.  So, imagine being married for almost 87 years!  That's how long Zelmyra and Herbert Fisher of North Carolina had been married, before Herbert passed away on February 27th, 2011. 2008 Guiness World Record holders for the longest marriage, Zelmyra was born in 1907 and Herbert in 1905.

On Valentine's Day 2010, they spent time on Twitter giving relationship advice, and what great advice it was:

1. What made you realize that you could spend the rest of your lives together? Were you scared at all? H Z: With each day that passed, our relationship was more solid and secure. Divorce was NEVER an option – or even a thought.
2. How did you know your spouse was the right one for you?
We grew up together and were best friends before we married. A friend is for life – our marriage has lasted a lifetime.

3. Is there anything you would do differently after more than 80 years of marriage?
We wouldn’t change a thing. There’s no secret to our marriage, we just did what was needed for each other and our family.

4. What is your advice to someone who is trying to keep the faith that Mr. Right is really out there?
Zelmyra: Mine was just around the corner! He is never too far away, so keep the faith – when you meet him, you’ll know.
5. What was the best piece of marriage advice you ever received?
Respect, support and communicate with each other. Be faithful, honest true. Love each other with ALL of your heart.

6. What are the most important attributes of a good spouse?
Zelmyra: A hard worker and good provider. The 1920s were hard, but Herbert wanted  provided the best for us. I married a good man!

7. What is your best Valentine’s Day memory?
Zelmyra: I cook dinner EVERY day. Herbert left work early and surprised me – he cooked dinner for me! He is a VERY good cook!
Herbert: I said that I was going to cook dinner for her and she could relax – the look on her face and clean plate made my day!

8. You got married very young – how did u both manage to grow as individuals yet not grow apart as a couple?
“Everyone who plants a seed and harvests the crop celebrates together” We are individuals, but accomplish more together.

9. What is your fondest memory of your 85-year marriage?
Our legacy: 5 children, 10 grandchildren, 9 great-grandchildren, and 1 great-great grandchild.

10. Does communicating get easier with time? How do you keep your patience?
The children are grown, so we talk more now. We can enjoy our time on the porch or our rocking chairs – together.

11. How did you cope when you had to be physically separated for long periods of time?
Herbert: We were apart for 2 months when Z was hospitalized with our 5th child. It was the most difficult time of my life. Zelmyra’s mother helped me with the house and the other children, otherwise I would have lost my mind.
12. At the end of bad relationship day, what is the most important thing to remind yourselves?
Remember marriage is not a contest – never keep a score. God has put the two of you together on the same team to win.
13. Is fighting important?
NEVER physically! Agree that it’s okay to disagree, and fight for what really matters. Learn to bend – not break!

14. What’s the one thing you have in common that transcends everything else?
We are both Christians and believe in God. Marriage is a commitment to the Lord. We pray with and for each other every day.

Asked what the secret was to their long marriage, Zelmyra said:

“No secrets. There isn’t any secret. It was only God that kept us together.”

God, their faith, love and selflessness, the recipe for a good marriage.

They have five children, all of whom Herbert put through college, through hard work and diligence.

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Texas Teen Ben Breedlove Posted Two Inspirational Videos on YouTube Before His Death

There are some who come into this life simply to inspire others.  One such person, Ben Breedlove, was one of those who managed to touch many people's lives throughout his short life, and even more so through his death. 

Sick with the heart condition 'hypertrophic cardiomyopathy' (HC) for most of his life, the Austin, Texas teen had three near death experiences, the first one at the tender young age of four. Not that his health condition stopped him from living. His parents describe what a wonderful young man Ben was, here.

One of his many accomplishments was the creation of several popular YouTube channels including one in which he gave advice to young teens. But the week before he passed on he created another channel.  This time he only uploaded two very powerful videos entitled "This is my life" Part 1 and 2, in which he describes (with handwritten notes) some comforting visions he had during those experiences 'cheating death'. In one of those visions, his favorite rapper, Kid Cudi, appeared:

“While I was still unconscious, I was in this white room. No walls. It just went on and on. There was no sound [but peace]. It I was wearing a really nice suit. And so was my favorite rapper, Kid Cudi. Why he was the only one there with me, I’m still trying to figure out. But I was looking at this mirror that was in front of me. The first thing I thought was damn we look good… I couldn’t stop smiling."

With a maturity beyond his years, he also explains how he saw the 'white light' and how comforting and at peace he felt. At the end he writes: "Do you believe in Angels or God?"  then lifts the last piece of paper "I do".

A compilation of the videos went viral, and Kid Cudi was so touched he wrote about it on his blog.

Ben uploaded those videos on December 18, and on the evening of December 25 he left the physical plane. He must have somehow known it was time. 

Ben was only 18 years old. Rest in Peace, you are now 'at home'.

Martin Luther King, Jr's Words Of Wisdom- Building A Creative Temple

Today we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Cut down in his prime. But his speeches and sermons will live on forever.

Everyone is familiar with his wonderful "I Have A Dream" speech, but some lesser known ones, with a spiritual bent rather than political bent, are just as impressive and inspiring. So, I share this one from his "Building A Creative Temple".

Whenever you set out to build a creative temple, whatever it may be, you must face the fact that there is a tension at the heart of the universe between good and evil. Hinduism refers to this as a struggle between illusion and reality. Platonic philosophy used to refer to it as a tension between body and soul. Zoroastrianism, a religion of old, used to refer to it as a tension between the god of light and the god of darkness. Traditional Judaism and Christianity refer to it as a tension between God and Satan. Whatever you call it, there is a struggle in the universe between good and evil.

Now not only is that struggle structured out somewhere in the external forces of the universe, it’s structured in our own lives. Psychologists have tried to grapple with it in their way, and so they say various things. Sigmund Freud used to say that this tension is a tension between what he called the id and the superego. Some of us feel that it’s a tension between God and man. And in every one of us this morning, there’s a war going on. It’s a civil war. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care where you live, there is a civil war going on in your life. And every time you set out to be good, there’s something pulling on you, telling you to be evil. It’s going on in your life. Every time you set out to love, something keeps pulling on you, trying to get you to hate. Every time you set out to be kind and say nice things about people, something is pulling on you to be jealous and envious and to spread evil gossip about them. There’s a civil war going on. There is a schizophrenia, as the psychologists or the psychiatrists would call it, going on within all of us. And there are times that all of us know somehow that there is a Mr. Hyde and a Dr. Jekyll in us. [...] There’s a tension at the heart of human nature. And whenever we set out to dream our dreams and to build our temples, we must be honest enough to recognize it.

In the final analysis, God does not judge us by the separate incidents or the separate mistakes that we make, but by the total bent of our lives. In the final analysis, God knows that his children are weak and they are frail. In the final analysis, what God requires is that your heart is right. Salvation isn’t reaching the destination of absolute morality, but it’s being in the process and on the right road.

And the question I want to raise this morning with you: is your heart right? If your heart isn’t right, fix it up today. Get somebody to be able to say about you, "He may not have reached the highest height, he may not have realized all of his dreams, but he tried." Isn’t that a wonderful thing for somebody to say about you? "He tried to be a good man. He tried to be a just man. He tried to be an honest man. His heart was in the right place." And I can hear a voice saying, crying out through the eternities, "I accept you. You are a recipient of my grace because it was in your heart. And it is so well that it was within thine heart."

I don’t know this morning about you, but I can make a testimony. You don’t need to go out this morning saying that Martin Luther King is a saint. Oh, no. I want you to know this morning that I’m a sinner like all of God’s children. But I want to be a good man. And I want to hear a voice saying to me one day, "I take you in and I bless you, because you try. It is well that it was within thine heart."

Recipe For A Disastrous Life- What you cook up in your mind you create

RECIPE FOR A DISASTROUS LIFE

1 cup of Negativity

1 cup of Lack of Faith

3/4 cup of Fear

1/2 cup of Doubt

1/4 cup of Resentment

4 heaping teaspoons of Jealousy

A dash of Regret

In the Bible's 'Book Of Proverbs', Chapter 23, Verse 7, it was written "As A Man Thinketh In His Heart, So Is He". James Allen, back in 1902, wrote a short essay entitled "As A Man Thinketh" which was inspired by that biblical verse. Many other spiritually enlightened individuals have also spoken about how our thoughts create our reality. In other words, if we continuously allow all the negative emotions and thoughts that inevitably arise within our minds on a daily basis to sit there and fester, we will only attract negativity into our lives. There is no way we can prosper, on any level, with negativity clouding our hearts and minds; and there is absolutely no way GOD can work through our lives with that darkness hanging over us.

With our day to day challenges, and particularly in these hard economic times, it can be very difficult to maintain a positive attitude. When we lose our jobs and can't pay our bills, or we have health issues that seem insurmountable, it's of tantamount importance to ramp up the faith factor even more. As hard as it might be to think positively while struggling through the storm of life, we must force ourselves to change the negative thoughts that slam into our minds like a hurricane, into positive ones. But it won't help if we just simply pay lip service by changing a negative to a positive, we must truly believe what we are affirming. Affirmations, of course, are a start, but we must change our whole mindset from one of lack and limitation to one of prosperity. Of course, prosperity means different things to different people; for me, the most important things one can have are shelter, food on the table, the love of friends and family, and good health to enjoy life. The rest is icing on the cake.

We need to remove all negativity in our lives, which means eliminating- fear, doubt, lack of faith, resentment, jealousy, regret, judgement, worry, anger. These things act as major impediments to a fruitful, joyous life.

Thought in the mind hath made us. What we are
By thought we wrought and built. If a man's mind
Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on him as comes
The wheel the ox behind . . . If one endure in purity
of thought joy follows him as his own shadow - sure.

To download Allen's e-booklet for free, click here. Or to read it on-line, click here.

On Unconditional Love- GoD and DoG by Wendy J. Francisco

Unconditional love. Not many of us know what that truly means. We often 'love' others with conditions. We expect them to love us in return and often punish them when they don't. Unconditional love is loving someone without conditions, pre-conditions or obligations, and is not something that comes easily to us humans. Two great examples of unconditional love are GOD and dogs, and Wendy J Francisco has penned a lovely little song about just that. She explains here how she came up with the idea for the song. Someone apparently claimed it was blasphemy to compare God with a dog, but that's really not her point, as she explains and as I understood it.

I think it's just a wonderful example of how important it is to be forgiving and unconditional.

2010 a New Year, a New Decade- May it bring 'real' hope and change, because miracles DO happen!

2009 was a rough year and, admittedly, I will be happy when it's finally over. When I lived in Ecuador (for 2 years during high school), on New Year's eve they had a major block party on one of the major drags. Up and down Amazonas boulevard, live bands played music and effigies representing the old year were burned. I haven't thought about that in a long time, but this year I might do something similar as a symbolic gesture for out with the old, because it really sucked.

The economy has taken its toll on many, including me. Arts funding is usually the first to go in challenging economic times, so many theatres have shut down, the work has dwindled, and it might be time to search for another career. I also battled health problems for the best part of the year, and am only just starting to feel normal again, if that's possible when you have 2 chronic ailments. I have been sick since March, but since the beginning of May (when I finally decided to go to a doctor) I have been trekking to MDs and acupuncturists anywhere from 2 to 4 times a week. Because of lack of work, I did not get enough weeks to qualify for my union health insurance, so I will be paying over $2,000 per quarter in Cobra payments. At least I have that option. But 2010 is a new year and the start of a new decade, and I am ever hopeful- because miracles happen.

On the national level, we saw the election of our first black president, which would have been wonderful had it been the "right" black president. I blogged about what a disaster it would be to vote for Obama, and how a no vote or a vote for a 3rd party candidate was essentially a vote for Obama. People did anyway, and now many regret the decision. I'd like to say I told you so, but what would I gain from that. I just hope people remember, and vote the right way in 2010 and 2012. And though it seems that Obama could lay waste to this precious country in 4 short years, 2010 is a new year and the start of a new decade, and I am ever hopeful that things can change, for the better. And not Obama's vacuous claims of "hope and change." Real hope and change- because miracles happen.

We've seen more violence and more craziness around the world, with an increase in radical Islam (and the ultimate goal of global domination by extremists), but on the other hand we've also seen Muslims against terrorism and shariah become more vocal in their condemnation, both here and abroad. We are also witnessing that there are those in the Middle East who truly want democracy and will fight to achieve that goal, and so we need to pray for the Iranian people who are fighting on their own for freedom. All they want is moral support. Let's give it to them. Maybe more will follow suit, though that's highly unlikely. So, in spite of the mess our sad little world is in, 2010 is a new year and the start of a new decade, and I am ever hopeful that 'good' will win over 'evil'- because the good guys always win, and miracles do happen.

And if you don't believe in miracles watch this




Wishing everyone a blessed, prosperous and Happy New year. May it bring many miracles into all of our lives.

GOD bless this country and all freedom-loving people of the world.

Cross posted at Confessions Of A Closet Republican

Hello God - by Dolly Parton

This is a beautiful, incredibly powerful song by Dolly Parton, posted on Youtube, that someone has added photos to! It sadly reflects where we are today, a world full of hatred and violence, so much of that in the name of religion. A world in which so many seem to have completely forsaken GOD. The lyrics say it all. Enjoy and prepare to be moved.






Hello God- by Dolly Parton

Hello God, are you out there?
Can you hear me, are you listenin' any more?
Hello God, if we're still on speakin' terms
Can you help me like before?
I have questioned your existence,
My resistance leaves me cold
Can you help me go the distance?
Hello God, hello, hello

Verse 1:

This old world has gone to pieces
Can we fix it, is there time?
Hate and violence just increases
We're so selfish, cruel and blind
We fight and kill each other
In your name, defending you
Do you love some more than others?
We're so lost and confused

Chorus:

Hello God, are you out there?
Can you hear us, are you listenin' any more?
Hello God, if we're still on speakin' terms
Can you help us like before?
Oh, the free will you have given
We have made a mockery of
This is no way to be livin',
We're in great need of your love
Hello God Hello, Hello

Chorus:

Hello God, can you grant us
Love enough to make amends
(Hello God)
Is there still a chance
That we could start again
Hello God,we've learned our lesson
Dear God, don't let us go
Hello, Hello
More than ever
Hello God, hello, hello

Hello God, we really need you
We can't make it without you (Hello God)
We beseech you
In the name of all that's true
Hello God, please forgive us
For we know not what we do

Tag:

Hello God, give us one more chance
to prove ourselves to you
Hello, God; hello, God
Hello God.

"Dancing With God"

Although we all like to think we know what is best for our lives, I have found that when I relinquish my personal desires, and am able to totally "give it up", so to speak, for God to handle, my life works out far better than I could ever have imagined.

I actually learned that lesson after I got sick with Rheumatoid Arthritis in late 2003. It was a series of events, over a period of a year, that led me to the epiphany that God is in perfect control of all things. It was such a relief to come to the realizitation that I did not have to be in control of my life. I don't mean to say that I don't take responsibility for my actions, but I have learned that if I do the leg work God will do the rest. I have since ceased to spin my wheels.

So I wanted to share something I came across at middleageramblings, which perfectly describes what it's like to 'let go and let God". Letting God guide our lives is indeed like Dancing With God.

Dancing With God

When I meditated on the word Guidance,

I kept seeing "dance" at the end of the word.

I remember reading that doing God's will is a lot like dancing.

When two people try to lead, nothing feels right.

The movement doesn't flow with the music,

and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky.

When one person realizes that, and lets the other lead,

both bodies begin to flow with the music.

One gives gentle cues, perhaps with a nudge to the back

or by pressing lightly in one direction or another.

It's as if two become one body, moving beautifully.

The dance takes surrender, willingness, and attentiveness from one person

and gentle guidance and skill from the other.

My eyes drew back to the word Guidance.

When I saw "G": I thought of God, followed by "u" and "i".

"God, "u" and "i" dance."

God, you, and I dance.

As I lowered my head, I became willing to trust

that I would get guidance about my life.

Once again, I became willing to let God lead.

My prayer for you today is that God's blessings

and mercies are upon you on this day and everyday.

May you abide in God, as God abides in you.

Dance together with God, trusting God to lead

and to guide you through each season of your life.

This prayer is powerful and there is nothing attached.

If God has done anything for you in your life,

please share this message with someone else.

There is no cost but a lot of rewards;

so let's continue to pray for one another.

And I Hope You Dance !

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