Stop for a while....

"Guys bad habits are like a comfortable bed. Easy to get into, but hard to get out of.”

"The difficulties we experience always illuminate the lessons we all need most.”

“If you want a place as a sun in the crowd, you have to expect some blisters.”

"Silence of a righteous and strong is a strategy, not a refuge. A weapon and not an escape.”

“Life is not about growing up or growing old. It’s about making sure you never stop growing.”

-Anonymous

“Don’t put the key to your happiness in someone else’s pocket but into your own.”

“When I was a little girl, my mom liked to make breakfast food for dinner every now and then. I remember one night in particular when she had made breakfast food for dinner after a long, hard day at work. On that evening so long ago, my mom placed a plate of eggs, sausage, and extremely burned toast in front of my dad. I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed! Yet all my dad did was reach for his toast, smile at my mom, and ask me how my day was at school. I don’t remember what I told him that night, but I do remember watching him smear butter and jelly on that toast and eat every bite!

When I got up from the table that evening, I remember hearing my mom apologize to my dad for burning the toast. And I’ll never forget what he said: ’Darling, I love burned toast.’
Later that night, I went to kiss Daddy good night and I asked him if he really liked his toast burned. He wrapped me in his arms and said, ‘Darling, your Momma put in a hard day at work today and she was real tired. And besides a little burnt toast never hurt anyone!’ You know, life is full of imperfect things…..and imperfect people. Like I’m not the best housekeeper or cook.

What I’ve learned over the years is that learning to accept each other’s faults - and choosing to celebrate each other’s differences - is the one of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing, and lasting relationship.

And that’s my prayer for you today. That you will learn to take the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of your life and lay them at the feet of GOD. Because in the end, He’s the only One who will be able to give you a relationship, where burnt toast isn’t a deal-breaker! We could extend this to any relationship in fact - as understanding is the base of any relationship !!”

“Don’t put the key to your happiness in someone else’s pocket but into your own.”

Why is April 1- A day dedicated to fools!

Holidays are celebrated for all sorts of reasons. Some honour heroes, others commemorate religious events, but April 1 stands out as the only holiday that celebrates foolishness. April Fools' Day, or All Fools Day, is an odd celebration with a strange history. What other holiday asks us to play tricks and dupe our unsuspecting friends and acquaintances?

There's some uncertainty about when and where this bizarre tradition began, but the most accepted explanation traces April Fools' Day back to 16th century France. Up until 1564, the accepted calendar was the Julian calendar, which observed the beginning of the New Year around April. According to "The Oxford Companion to the Year," King Charles IX then declared that France would begin using the Gregorian calendar, which shifted New Year's Day to January 1.

Not everyone accepted this shifting of dates at the same time. Some believed that the dates should not be shifted, and it was these people who became the butt of some April jokes and were mocked as fools. People sent gifts and invited them to bogus parties. Citizens in the rural parts of France were also victims of these jokes. In those days, news travelled slowly and they might not have known about the shifting of dates for months or years. These people also endured being made fun of for celebrating the new year on the wrong day.

Picture: Today in France, people who are fooled on April 1 are called Poisson d'Avril, which literally means the "April Fish."

Today in France, people who are fooled on April 1 are called Poisson d'Avril, which literally means the "April Fish." One common joke is to hook a cardboard fish to the back of a person. What a fish has to do with April Fools' Day is not clear. Some believe that the fish is tied to Jesus Christ, who was often represented as a fish in early Christian times. Others say the fish is related to the zodiac sign of Pisces, which is represented by a fish, and falls near April. It's interesting to point out that Napoleon earned the Poisson d'Avril monicker when he married Marie-Louise of Austria on April 1, 1810.

It's probably no coincidence that April Fools' Day is celebrated at the same time that two other similar holidays are celebrated. In ancient Rome, the festival of Hilaria was thrown to celebrate the resurrection of the god Attis. Hilaria is probably the base word for hilarity and hilarious, which mean great merriment. Today, Hilaria is also known as Roman Laughing Day. In India, the Holi festival celebrates the arrival of spring. As a part of that festival, people play jokes and smear colours on each other.

There's no clear connection between the modern observance of April Fools' Day and these two ancient celebrations, which lends most historians to accept the French explanation for how April Fools' Day developed.