Michael Brent Jones

He held out his arms and I ran to embrace him. It wasn__ that I couldn__ feel my sorrows anymore, it was as if they were never there. I felt safe, and loved. There were no words exchanged, we just held each other.

Don__ worry if love is not a perfect fairytale__t should be fun and exciting, but not without a few hiccups. Love won't be without hardships or disappointment, without sacrifice or sorrow, because love cannot be without faith and growth.Marry someone that you want to make happy, that you want to serve, and that you want to share everything with, someone that you want to make laugh, someone that you want to hold.One of the biggest problems in a relationship is people feeling scared to give someone access to their unguarded heart, which is silly because in reality it is quite the opposite, there is a safety and enabling power in being honest and open.

I__ like to share with you a parable: the parable of Bob the Angel.A girl was walking down a darkly lit city street late at night. A man jumped out from the shadows and attacked her, suddenly she was suffocating and disoriented as hands clasped around her neck and the force of his attack started to push her down. She tried to yell as she struggled to pull his arms from her neck while she crumpled backwards to the ground, __od . . . help me!_ The next thing she remembers__ust as the fear consumed her, and right as she disappeared into the misery and despair of helplessness__as a loud crash and an explosion of glass which rained down upon her and her attacker. The assailant__ lifeless body was suspended above her, held from collapsing on her by an unknown force, and then pulled away from hovering over her and dropped onto the pavement beside her. She opened her eyes in the faint shadowy light, to see black matted hair and a long, black beard framing the eyes of a man. The smell of alcohol on his breath would have knocked her out if the adrenaline was not still trilling through her veins. There he stood, God__ angel, off-kilter and drunk, with a broken whiskey bottle in his hand. __ou probably shouldn__ be walking through here this late at night,_ was all he said as he turned away.__ait! What__ your name?_ she asked, still stunned half sitting up on the ground.All she heard as he walked away was his trailing voice calling, __ob__ as good as any. . . ._ An angel is a messenger, and sometimes we only want letters sent in white envelopes with beautiful gold print, when sometimes a simple __o_ on the back of a gum wrapper is what we are offered. Every postcard from heaven does not come with a picture of the sunset there, nor should it. If it is an answer we want, an answer we will get. As far as pretty postcards, there are many others willing to send us that. If not harps and gold-tipped wings, what then is the mark of an angel? An answer which pierces your soul, and which inspires a question that invites you to look outside of yourself and up to God. God is very objective; He wants to make us think, to engage the faculties we have been given, and to learn from the messengers he sends us. He wants us in the ark before the flood; he could come himself__r send a Noah__ut most of the time he sends Bob. Bob is in you, Bob is in me, Bob is in the emotionalized, sarcastic, mocking, patronizing, proud or foolish person which points out meaningful things to us in the worst possible moments, or in the worst possible way.

It's okay to be sad, but it's not okay to be ungrateful. Cultivating gratitude is the attitude that makes room for happiness; given the space for happiness to grow, gratitude has a way of surmounting the misery of disaster and adversity, and healing our soul. Take heart, the future is brighter when you look for and seek the light in it.

Every word appears in our mind as a composite of everything else we associate with it. We by default personify every word, because in each of our minds, when we think of a certain person, there is one word that is the biggest part of that composite image. If I said swimming, singing or story telling each word is personified by someone different in each of our minds. It is very important to not let hate, treachery or any negative thing be personified by anyone in our mind, also not to give any reason that we would personify them in someone else__ mind. Any space in our hearts we allow hate to occupy, is space that could be filled with love. There will come a time in every person__ life, when they realize they are woefully wanting in the love they have cultivated in their heart. How amazing to think of the contrary: that you personified love in someone__ mind. What better compliment could we ever hear, than for someone to say, that we are their personification of love? I think it__ something that is not too often said, but oh that it was, and more, that there were more reason to say it. My wish is that every person could wake up in the morning with a prayer, that they may have the courage, diligence and desire to love more truly, sincerely and objectively; that every night we reflect on what we may have represented by our thoughts, words and deeds,_ Jefferson concluded.

Although it is easy to imagine happiness as the upwards turn on this haphazard rising and falling of emotion which is life, but really it is a foundation of strength of character and inner balance that precipitates peace, a foundation that is slowly built or slowly chipped away. There are times when it may seem that the foundation of happiness is broken, but as the dust settles and the debris is cleared away, we find that the storm has only covered it, still leaving everything we have built in place. True happiness is forged in the furnace of perseverance, fortitude, hope and love. It is not burned or broken by the heat, rather it is made unbreakable__t becomes eternal. Life is the fuel for this purifying fire.

The power we were given to think, is to enable us to live better lives, not fool more people.

If there is any one person you can't love, then you don't understand love. The bitter cup we have to drink is the dregs of humility; we must see past the outer shells of insecurity to the seed of divinity deep inside each one of us. No one virtue is strong enough to stand on its own. No one vice is simple enough not to lead to all others. No one person can appreciate and support us as much as we need. No one event is enough to tear apart our lives. What does this all mean? We have to give everything or we will have nothing. We cannot take any short cuts. We have to love everyone, or we cannot truly love anyone. No excuse will mean anything to us in the end.People are beautiful, don__ forget that. Don__ let pomp and circumstance, society or folklore fool you with counterfeit beauty. True beauty is usually not something you can see, but something you feel; something that inspires you.

Hopefully not by sad experience, you will find that some interactions most private, can be the coldest and most closed off, and some interactions seemingly common or casual can be the most intimate.

You can only feel love to the extent in which you love yourself. If you deficiently love yourself, you will never believe that another person could truly love you. If you overly love yourself, no one__ love will be good enough, and the world will seem pale and cold.

We are the masters of our own destinies, and only we can allow our hearts to be filled, and enable our souls to be happy. No amount of power or mercy can change a heart from empty to whole, or change the end of a will from everlasting sadness to eternal joy.

It is not you that is flawed or broken, it is the space in your heart yet to be filled, that has been given to guilt that takes away the strength you needed to overcome the trials ahead of you. That is not evil_ it__ mortal. And the real us, is born in a shell of mortality like a bird, and just like that bird, once that shell is broken away, we will spread our wings and fly away, leaving far behind shards of triumphed and discarded insecurities.

In the body there are two creatures, and they are both in enmity with each other. For one to do anything, the other has to be subjected to it. One has a mind and the other only has an appetite. The more the mind gets, the more it is satisfied, but the more the appetite gets, the more its hunger grows; its appetite is for imaginary things, it dreams that it is eating, but when it wake, which it dreads to do, it is empty and pangs.

Our purpose in mortality collectively, is to pioneer godliness; with each of our unique personalities and perspectives, we are searching out the pieces of the divine puzzle. Possibly before this life is over, but certainly after, there will be a great collaboration, and we will all bring our pieces of the puzzle together that we have found. Each piece on its own is quite an odd spectacle, but together they are beautiful and amazing__he whole mystery of mortality and eternal life. __hat pieces are you holding? What good have you found? Bring it together and we will all rejoice.

Let this change you. Let this take hold in the very center of your soul. Write it on the walls of your heart. Let this emanate through every part of you, and trickle into every aspect of your life. You were not designed to be merely a good person, but that through the experience of mortality you could embrace the divinity you were created with. I do not merely want you to get along with others, but for everyone to be one, and one in me. Not for my glory, but that the glory of godliness will exalt you to a higher plane of existence, beyond anything you've ever imagined. Throw out weakness and fear; rid yourself of those spoiled garments. Adorn yourself with new garments, spotless and pure. Be reborn. Set your hand to the plow and look not back. Take that first step onto the water; do not fear the wind or the waves, for it is I your Lord and Savior who beckon you. Listen o listen to my voice, which is the voice of the Good Sheppard who calls you; for why should ye parish for naught?_ Parker, the bar has been set, for you and for I, and all the rest of humanity should we chose to accept the invitation,_ Flavius concluded powerfully.

Strong is the man who can pull apart his own pride and hopelessness; courageous is the man who then reaches in, near his most vital inner workings to pull out the slivers and shards of mortality that have worked their way in.It__ not about determining the shade of grey the white paint in the bucket has become, but finding where the black paint is dripping from, and stopping it.

Are you really a doctor?_ I asked.__ome people say that.___hy?___ecause I went to medical school.___id you not finish?_ I asked hesitantly.__ finished.___o_?___o sometimes I work as a doctor.___o doesn__ that make you a doctor?___ guess, but I also worked as a baker, construction worker, and a bunch of other things. Either way I just prefer being known as Jack. I mean Dr. Baker Jack Hammer Jack, would be entertaining, but I think also a little weird.

We shouldn't enable ourselves or others to bad behavior, but should always encourage for good. Our attitude toward sin is a reflection of our knowledge of our relationship to God; we are His children, and though we are to work through weakness, what plagues and plays on those weaknesses is not part of who we are. We will have to choose between sacrificing our sins, or sacrificing who we are, which would be sacrificing our divine heritage.