Grow into Your Dream

Sir Edmund Hillary was the first man to climb Mount Everest. On May 29, 1953 he scaled the highest mountain then known to man--29,000 feet straight up. The world lauded him. England knighted him for his achievement.

However, it’s little known that Hillary had to grow into this success. You see, in 1952 he attempted to climb Everest, but failed. A few weeks later a group in England asked him to address its members.

Hillary walked on stage to a thunderous applause. The audience was recognizing an attempt at greatness, but Edmund Hillary saw himself as a failure. He moved away from the microphone and walked to the edge of the platform. He shook his fist at a picture of the mountain, and yelled, "Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I'll beat you the next time because you've grown all you are going to grow... but I'm still growing!"

Dreams you fail to reach can be conquered later through personal growth. When you first make your attempts you may have made inadequate plans. You may have lacked some skills. You may have partnered with the wrong people. You may have offered an inferior product.

Whatever the reason for initial failure, you can amend yourself and try again. If you desire a thing with enough passion, you can achieve it in spite of multiple failed attempts.

You may need to read more on the subject, take some classes, consult an expert, ask for feedback from trusted associates, or you may need to work a little harder.

See, you can grow. You aren’t stuck with your current weaknesses. You can chip away at these weaknesses. You can learn new skills. And with growth, you can conquer your personal Everest.

Sir Edmund Hillary is known as the conqueror of one of the greatest achievements in history. Yet, he had to grow into his success.

For what great achievement will you be known?

You can grow into it.

When you say, I love you...

In the ICU that evening... He rubbed her bald head, looking into her now dimmed eye sight, he whispered, " Go ahead, rest now. I love you..."

I could not shake of that picture. She used to have long, thick, black hair. Beautiful and wavy. Few weeks ago, all was shaved. Bald.

My old friend was battling ovary cancer. They found out about this 6 months ago, about a year after she gave birth to her second son.

I may think that cancer is a merciless and deadly enemy, but what I saw that evening was something cancer could not kill.

What is it with this idea of 'falling in love' that I'm so used to hear every single day? What are people 'falling' for? Good looks? Muscles and biceps? Long eye-lashes and rosie cheeks? or... long, black, thick hair?

When couples say 'I do' by the altar - do they really know what's in for them? Are they even prepared for the worst scenario life will offer them?

That evening, in that ICU room, I witnessed something that Ovary cancer could not kill, something death could not take. I witnessed love... so gentle, committed and true to the end.


In loving memory of the late Pola Renta Glen...

Cheerful Sounds from a Jail Cell

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord!
Phil. 3:1

Joy. The word has a quick, poignant ring to it. Yet it, like other words, has been drained of meaning over the years, even tapped as a name for a dishwashing detergent. Nowadays joy is used most commonly for a sensation like thrill. We think of joy as something you save up for months to experience and then splurge on in a moment of exhilaration: a trip to Dunia Fantasi, a free-fall drive, a heart-stopping ride on the world's meanest roller coaster, a hot-air balloon trip. Paul had a different understanding of the word, as this letter reveals.

When You Feel Like Despairing
Philippians uses the word joy or rejoice every few paragraphs, but the joy it describes doesn't vanish after your heart starts beating normally again. Rejoice, says Paul, when someone selfishly tries to steal the limelight from you. And when you meet persecution for your faith. And when you are facing death. In fact, the most joyous book in the Bible comes from the pen of an author chained to a Roman guard. Many scholars believe Paul wrote Philippians in Rome just about the time Nero began tossing Christians to ravenous lions and burning them as torches to illuminate his banquet. How could a rational man devoted a letter to the topic of joy while his survival was in serious jeopardy? in such an environment, how could joy possibly thrive?

What would you write?
This letter to the Philippians continues to amaze me until this day. I admire the focus this man had, the hope and the faith on the resurrected Christ this man possessed. Paul could have chosen to wrote his letter differently, pouring out his complains, the bitter trial and the unfair treatments he went through and sought comfort in the shoulders and heart of the Philippians. He could have filled his letter with tears, sarcasm and self-pity. But, he didn't! His choice of words reflected his firm belief on the solid rock. Though his body will decay, his spirit man is thriving. Though his hands and feet was bound with chain, his spirit was dancing with joy. Yes, I too can choose my words. I too can choose a different look to the surrounding I am in, the people I am with and to the work I am doing. When people read my letter, would they find words of encouragement, words of hope and joy there? It is my choice....

A Significant Touch

(How one half-timer connected with her passion and touched the world)

The first time Rosalind Cook sank her hands into a mound of clay at the age of 26, her soul said, "Ah ha!"

"Shaping that clay into a meaningful form was like finding a piece of myself that had been missing for a long, long time," explains Cook. But life was busy, and for years sculpting terra cotta clay was simply a hobby for Cook, a teacher of the blind before becoming a stay-at-home mother of three, who served on a plethora of school boards and fund-raising committees.

"I realized I was trying to be who other people thought I should be, and I wasn't looking at how God created me. I pulled away from community work and reflected on what really gave me joy in life - and that was sculpting. But I still felt a bit guilty about loving it so much, until a missionary friend watched as I pulled out my clay one evening. I cried as I said to him: 'I don't understand how I can have so much joy in doing this! Where's the significance? This isn't saving souls. This isn't doing anything for anyone. It just feeds me and brings me joy.' "

And that wise man of God replied, "Rosalind, you are made in God's image. He's your Creator and when you use the gifts of His image that gives Him pleasure.'

"From that day on I gave myself permission to sculpt," says Cook. "And I finally connected with its true significance in my life. I was 41. I cast my first bronze at 42 and was able to sell it almost immediately."

Today, Cook's prized bronze sculptures, which range from happy, playful children to full-sized images of Jesus, grace galleries throughout the world. She has donated many pieces to charities, raising far more money than any committee work she ever did.

"My art is a celebration of life and its Creator," says Cook. "It gives me the opportunity to motivate people to give themselves permission to dream. When I gave myself permission to take joy in clay, God sculpted a new world for me in the second half of life. If you delight in your God-given passion, He will give you the desires of your heart - because He put them there! Don't ignore what God is tugging at your heart to do; that's like saying what He has created for you isn't important. Pursue what gives you joy, and you will be amazed by the significance of what God will do through you.

To learn more about the artist and her art, visit http://www.rosalindcook.com


Put Your Hands in the Hands

When word of Rosalind Cook's talent spread, requests for commissioned work became overwhelming.

"I asked the Lord for the strength to say no to some requests because I wanted everything I did to have real significance - value other than a pretty piece of bronze to sell in a gallery."

Soon afterward Cook did a small head study of a woman with a turban draped over one shoulder. The sculpture stopped at the clavicle.

"I wanted to create a woman who depicted beauty not because of her hair, not because of her body, but because she had this inner strength and dignity," explains Cook.

Weeks later a friend saw the small piece in Cook's studio and asked the artist if she would donate it as a fund-raiser for Tulsa Project Woman, a organization that helps women who have no health insurance pay for breast cancer treatments.

"I finished the piece and took it to my foundry to have my mold done and asked for Suzy, who always does them for me. But Suzy wasn't there" recalls Cook. "I learned she had breast cancer and was taking chemo treatments. In tears I told her co-workers what the sculpture was for and was astounded to learn that Project Tulsa Woman had paid for Suzy's treatments."

Later Cook asked Suzy to speak at the event in which the small bronze sculpture would be unveiled. Although shy, Suzy bravely told a crowded room how Tulsa Project Woman took her death sentence and gave her the gift of hope.

"Everyone there was in tears as Suzy, who had lost her hair and her breast, stood beside that sculpture of a woman who depicted beauty - not because of her hair, not because of her body - but because she had inner strength and dignity," recalls Cook. "Suzy was the living embodiment of that sculpture, and the money to help more women poured in. God honored my prayer for significance by taking the least significant thing I had done and making it the most significant. HIS hands guided mine to shape that small study because He knew exactly what its purpose was."

[By Ivey Harrington Beckman}]

Broken Instruments

I came across these pictures while i was surfing the net for other images I needed.

Broken down and damaged, you would think who would want to use these broken instruments? No beautiful sound would ever be able to come out of such things. Nobody would go to any music stores looking for broken down instruments...I mean, nobody would display such instruments by their windows expecting customers to drop by and shop inside. To put it further, putting such instruments will distract customers from coming to your store.


Yeps… that might be true…

But now, I want you to see another kind of broken instruments…our hearts.

We all have walked our different journeys. Life experiences have somehow gotten our hearts weary, tired and … broken. Unfulfilled hopes, shattered dreams, bitter and painful experiences have somehow ruined the strings on these unique instruments.

Passers passed by and they said…hopeless, there’s no way anything good would ever come out of those broken stuffs.

Hmmm, wait a minute… don’t make your comments that fast…or, ‘don’t jump the gun!’, a cowboy would say

Now, look real close at this…


Hey, somebody is holding that broken down stuff…

Hey…there’s beautiful sound coming out of it…!!!

Yups, you’re right, brothers. Of all those passers, there’s One that stopped by, … looked at those broken instruments and… He picked them up…one by one

The sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit.
God, you will not reject a heart that is broken and sorry for sin.

Ps. 51:17 (NCV)

He hold them fast in His hands…and in His hands, in His hands alone…those old broken down stuffs begin to produce the most beautiful sound the world has ever heard …and …when you look real close, it’s not only come from one instrument but from a big orchestra… An orchestra made out of broken down instruments….


Hey...you can look and read a list of broken instruments in Matthew 1 (yeps, He decided to start the New Testament with this list...unbelievable...- you would not start a book with a genealogy, would you? It would be such a boring thing!).


With a trail and long list of all these broken instruments - consists of a liar, adulterer, somebody that committed incest with his daughter in law, harlot and ... peeping thumb? - then came the Messiah!! These broken instruments made a grand orchestra with symphony so beautiful with crescendo of the birth of Jesus.


Fantastic…!


So, today… when I see a ‘broken instrument’, I would not tossed it aside or throw it away… I want to hold it in my hand and gently, like the Hands that are holding me, I want to make beautiful sound out of it…for I too was once that broken instrument.

“The heart is the only broken instrument that works.”
- T. E. Kalem

A pen of a ready writer

"My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king:
my tongue is the pen of a ready writer."
Psalm 45:1

I was up way so early this morning (I did plan on getting up early) to get things done. While doing these things I did plan to do, I remember my sister's comment on a blog she visited few days ago. So, I thought I'd checked it out.

And then to my amazement, I read all these posting - done by a girl... barely known... - and I truly love her writings, so authentic, down to earth... originale...!

I've been thinking through about these 'writing' stuffs lately. The 'why' behind the writings.

And here's what I found, to write is not something we do just for the sake of fun. I remember the days when I was so moved by the writings of Leonard Ravenhill, Oswald Chambers and the many great men of God of the past. There are something in those writings that are alive. You can still feel their hot burning passion as you read and re-read their writings. These are not ordinary writings.

Their writings have moved and shape a generation and alter the course of history. Amazing!

So, with this thoughts in mind, I surrender myself to the hand of God, may He uses me as His pen to write things He wanted, messages He tucked deep within my heart. As He said, I only need to be a 'ready' writer. No need to be skillful first. He'll shape and polish my skill as I go along hand in hand with Him. May the writings of this pen makes similar impacts as those writings of old, penetrating society and culture, touching the heart of people, ... even one soul at a time.