In " The Pilgrim's Progress " we are told about the Hill Difficulty. It was a high, hard hill which every one had to climb, if he would make the most of his life. Of course there are some people who do not care whether they ever do any better or are any better. They are satisfied to stay at the bottom all their lives, but for the boy or girl who is seeking the best things, life is like the climbing of a hill that is steep and rough.
There are two things that we all need if we are ever to reach the top. One is sand. When you hear some one say that a certain boy has plenty of "sand," you know what he means, but perhaps you do not know just where that expression came from.
One of the greatest powers of which we know is that of the waves along the seashore. Half-way between Cape Henry and Virginia Beach there lies the wreck of a great ship, one hundred and fifty feet long. It was lifted by the waves and thrown high up on the beach. There is almost nothing that can stand before the power of the waves. If they make a bulkhead of piles or stone or concrete, it will last a few years and will then be undermined and washed away. Men have never found anything that can long hold the waves back. But God has made a bulkhead that the sea cannot pass. It is the sand. The sand can stand against the waves and it is the only thing we know that can.
Sand in a boy or girl is the courage and power to stand up before things that are hard. It is the ability to say ''no" when temptation comes along, and to mean it. It is the power to take some hard work and stick to it and hold on till it is finished.
You see someday a street-car starting up a long grade. Before the car begins to climb, the conductor takes a look at the sand box. He will not start up the hill unless there is plenty of sand in that box. Without sand the car will slip back before it reaches the top.
Some boys never can play football. They have the weight, and the strength, and the speed, but they haven't the sand. And there are some people who never get anywhere in life. They have good bodies and plenty of brains and opportunity. But they lack sand. Now you are all starting out to climb the hill of life before you. Never forget that you must have sand.
And there is something else that we need. Oftentimes we need help. We cannot do our work alone.
There was a little boy who was trying to lift a heavy stone. He could not budge it. Just then his father came along and watched him. At last he said to the boy, "Are you using all your strength?" "Yes'' answered the boy, ''I am using all of it." "No," said his father, "you are not using all of it." So the little fellow tried again, this time harder than ever, and he moved the stone a little, but still he could not lift it. His father said again to him, ''You are not using all of your strength." The boy said, "Yes, I am. Father." "No," said the father, "you haven't asked me to help yet." The boy had forgotten that his father's strength was his strength too, and that he could ask for it, and have it if he needed it. In the same way let us remember that God's strength is our strength, and that we can have that strength to help us if we need it. S. N. Hutchison
Sunday, February 20, 2022
Sand
Color the Angels Announcing the Birth of Jesus
Thursday, February 17, 2022
Counting the stars...
Star light, star bright,
First star I've seen to-night?
Then we would see who could count the stars as they appeared. One, two, four, five, seven, eight, ten, twenty, fifty, eighty, and in a little while we all would be lost, both in arithmetic and in wonder.
They call a man who watches and studies the stars an astronomer, and the astronomers have tried to count the stars, and partly by counting, and partly by guessing they tell us there must be between 2,000 and 3,000 millions of stars and each one is different, for one star differeth from another star in glory.
We cannot count the stars, but God can. He counts them all and names them, for He made them and the stars are not little tiny sparks of fire, but great wonderful worlds. The great sun that lights and warms our world is just a star, and a little star. Every star we see in the sky is a sun, hundreds of times bigger than our sun. It is because they are so far away that they look so tiny and so small. Some of the stars in the Milky Way are a hundred thousand trillion miles away. Think of a hundred thousand trillion miles. Try and write out a hundred thousand trillion. You put down the figure 1 then you write 100, then 100,000, then 100,000,000, then you write 100,000,000,000, then you write a hundred thousand trillion like this, 100,000,000,000,000,000; and that is the distance some of the stars in the Milky Way are from our sun.
The light that travels from some of these faraway stars takes millions of years to travel to our earth, and light travels fast, 186,000 miles a second. No wonder little ones like to look up into the sky on a clear cool night and say:
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high.
Like a diamond in the sky.
When the blazing sun is set,
And the grass with dew is wet,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Stars, just like boys and girls, are different. Each has its own way, and its own light. There are white stars, and yellow stars, and red stars. You have seen a white hot iron, and you know that when it begins to cool it gets yellow and then it gets red, and then it gets black. That is the way with stars, and perhaps the hottest stars are white. I do not know, but I like to think that just as God counts the stars and names them so he calls every boy and girl by name and cares for each one. We live in a big world but God is greater than sun and moon and stars.
The Bible calls Jesus a star. It gives Him a star's name. It calls him "the bright and morning star." The morning star leads the world into the light of the new day and so Jesus leads us. The sailor is guided over the trackless sea by the stars. The traveler over the desert picks his path by the help of some star, so we too find our way to God by keeping our eyes on Jesus.
There is a story of a young girl who had lost her way. She was lost not in the forest, or on the sea, but right in her own home. She had lost the way to peace, to happiness, and to a quiet heart. One night she had a dream. She was in a deep, deep pit, and there were no steps, no rope, nor ladder. She gave herself up for lost and then falling on her knees and looking up she saw a piece of blue sky and one star. When she saw the star she began to rise. It seemed so strange that she said, "Who is lifting me?" and looking down she found herself at the bottom. Again she saw the star and began to rise, but looked again to see who was lifting her and found herself at the bottom. A third time she fixed her eyes on the shining star, and kept looking until she found herself lifted out of the deep pit, and she was safe. Then she awoke and said, "I see it all now. I am not to look at myself, but at Jesus, the bright and morning star."
When Sir Harry Lauder was in America he was walking with a father and a little boy down one of the streets of New York. It was in the days of the great war, when service flags with a star were hung in the windows. The little lad loved to point them out. "Look, father," he would say, "there's a home that has given a son to the war." "Look, father, there's another star." "Look, father, there are two stars." Then the lad, looking up at the Evening Star that had appeared in the sky, said, "And look, father, God too must have given a son, for there is a star in His window." Yes, God so loved the world that He gave Jesus. Kerr
See The Star - Christmas Worship Song
A man who forgot his own name . . .
The other day the newspapers were full of the strangest story I think I ever heard. It was the story of a man who forgot his own name, and forgot his friends and his home and his loved ones and wandered away farther and farther, day after day, and didn't know that he was lost and didn't know where he was going. He was not a poor, good-for-nothing man either, but was a man whom everybody in the city knew, a lawyer and a judge. He wandered far away into the country, living on little or nothing, begging for work, refusing to sit at the table with other people, and satisfied to eat just like a common, ordinary tramp (wanderer). At last he found work, very humble work, and was satisfied.
All this time his wife and friends were worrying about him and thought he must be dead. But he had one friend who refused to think he was dead, and who searched for him day and night. At last he discovered traces of him, and one morning visited the factory where the lost man was sitting at a table making pearl buttons out of clam shells. Without waiting a moment, he went up to him and called him by his right name, and immediately the lost man recognized his friend, and knew where he was and remembered about his home. You can imagine how strange he felt, and how quickly he went with his friend, and how glad he was to get back to his own home and to his dear family.
Somewhere in the Bible I have read a story something like this newspaper story. It is about a young man who left home one day, and never said where he was going, or what he was going to do, or when he would come back. He was rich and had beautiful clothes and many friends, but his money was soon spent and his good clothes soon became ragged, and the only work he could find was with a stranger who sent him out into the fields to feed the pigs. One day when he was in the field all alone, hungry and thirsty, he thought he heard some one call his name. He looked up and down and behind him and all around, but could see no one. He was sure he heard some one call his name, and the story says, " He came to himself," just like the man who was making the pearl buttons. Then he knew where he was, and without waiting to say good-bye he hurried home, and sure enough, his father was standing at the gate waiting and watching for him.
You remember it was Jesus who told that story, and He told it to us so that we would understand that when we forget God and run away from Him we forget our own true name and run away from our best Friend. Hugh Kerr
Coloring Pages of The Prodigal Son:
Coloring page of Joel 2:28 and poppies...
Color the costume of a Hebrew priest...
Description of The Coloring Page: wood block print, costume of a Hebrew priest, tassels, gems in the breast plate, city and sea behind, landscape
Coloring page of Hosea 1:7
The Story of Eager Heart: A Christmas Story
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| "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels with- out knowing it." Hebrews 13:2 |
The foxes found rest
And the birds their nest,
In the shade of the forest tree
But Thy couch was the sod,
O Thou Son of God,
In the deserts of Galilee;
O come to ray heart, Lord Jesus,
There is room in my heart for Thee.
Geometric shapes in stained glass to color...
Color The Tree of Life
Sunday, February 13, 2022
Color Valentine Clip Art for Crafty Cards!
Young students may download and print this Valentine clip art to color, cut-out and paste onto handmade cards. Give a Valentine to a parent, sibling, friend or anyone really. Write your own messages and design a unique card for someone special this year.
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| Clip art for coloring of forget-me-nots and roses. |
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| Clip art for coloring of clusters of flowers. |
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| Clip art for coloring of birds delivering love letters. |
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| Clip art for coloring of hearts pierced with arrows. |
Saturday, February 12, 2022
Song of Angels Coloring Page
Description of Coloring Page: violin, angles, wings, music, Virgin Mary, baby Jesus, drawn from a painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
William-Adolphe Bouguereau - born in November 1825 and died August 1905. He was a French academic painter. In his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body. During his life, he enjoyed significant popularity in France and the United States, was given numerous official honors, and received top prices for his work. As the quintessential salon painter of his generation, he was reviled by the Impressionist avant-garde. By the early twentieth century, Bouguereau and his art fell out of favor with the public, due in part to changing tastes. In the 1980s, a revival of interest in figure painting led to a rediscovery of Bouguereau and his work. Throughout the course of his life, Bouguereau executed 822 known finished paintings, although the whereabouts of many are still unknown.
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| The painting "Song of Angels" See it's original colors. |
Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg. into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.