Parents In Heaven At Christmas Quotes

There are certain rules to be observed when writing about our parents. We can only describe them as transparent figures with golden haloes, smiling down at us from heaven, large flag billowing in the breeze optional, just before the end credits roll. ~ Jessica Zafra

Some people need help, but they don't need your help, Lily. At least not directly. They need help from their parents or their teachers or, heaven forbid, the authorities. When you see someone robbing a 7-Eleven, you call the police, you don't dash in yourself. ~ Cassie Beasley

I am not a churchgoing man. Strangled in the vines of form and choked with ritual Christians, Sunday service held no appeal for me as a child. When my parents released me from compulsory attendance, I would never return. In my view, religion is best practiced out of doors, in nature's cathedral of miracles where spirits and the arts of heaven mingle unencumbered. The spirits were present on the tiny unmarked parcel at Mount Vernon that early autumn afternoon.
Hazel and I stood for a long while in complete silence. Words would have marred, much as they misserve this inadequate telling of what we felt. We had been touched by wearied souls calling, in a language ethereal as morning mist, from the near realm that awaits us all.
These were 'our' ancestors and, alone behind an old wooden outbuilding, my wife and I had wordlessly worshiped with them on that clear crisp afternoon. ~ Randall Robinson

I buy an ice-cream sandwich at the Stop-N-Go on my way home. The taste takes me back to childhood. Back when life was dreaming about things to come and believing that if you really wanted something bad enough, it could and would be yours. I remember praying for a bike for Christmas, and there it was. We prayed for Minnie's gerbil to live and it did. Later, in high school, I asked God for guidance about where to go to college, and that very day, like a kite floating straight from heaven, the acceptance letter came from UNC-Charlotte. ~ Alice J. Wisler

There are some doubters even in the western villages. One woman told me last Christmas that she did not believe either in hell or in ghosts. Hell she thought was merely an invention got up by the priest to keep people good; and ghosts would not be permitted, she held, to go 'trapsin about the earth' at their own free will; 'but there are faeries,' she added, 'and little leprechauns, and water-horses, and fallen angels.' I have met also a man with a mohawk Indian tattooed upon his arm, who held exactly similar beliefs and unbeliefs. No matter what one doubts one never doubts the faeries, for, as the man with the mohawk Indian on his arm said to me, 'they stand to reason.' Even the official mind does not escape this faith. ("Reason and Unreason") ~ W.B.Yeats

He died at the wrong time, when there was much to be clarified and established. They hadn't even started to be grown-ups together. There was this piece of heaven, this little girl he'd carried around the shop on his shoulders; and then one day she was gone, replaced by a foreigner, an uncooperative woman he didn't know how to speak to. Being so confused, so weak, so in love, he chose strength and drove her away from himself. The last years he spent wondering where she'd gone, and slowly came to realise that she would never return, and that the husband he'd chosen for her was an idiot. ~ Hanif Kureishi

The Three-Decker

"The three-volume novel is extinct."

Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.
It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail;
But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best -
The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.

Fair held the breeze behind us - 'twas warm with lovers' prayers.
We'd stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs.
They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed,
And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.

By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook,
Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took
With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed,
And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest.

We asked no social questions - we pumped no hidden shame -
We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came:
We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell.
We weren't exactly Yussufs, but - Zuleika didn't tell.

No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared,
The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.
'Twas fiddle in the forc's'le - 'twas garlands on the mast,
For every one got married, and I went ashore at last.

I left 'em all in couples a-kissing on the decks.
I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques.
In endl ~ Rudyard Kipling

Modern man's dependency on the love partner, then, is a result of the loss of spiritual ideologies, just as is his dependency on his parents or on his psychotherapist. He needs somebody, some "individual ideology of justification" to replace the declining "collective ideologies." Sexuality, which Freud thought was at the heart of the Oedipus complex, is now understood for what it really is: another twisting and turning, a groping for the meaning of one's life. If you don't have a God in heaven, an invisible dimension that justifies the visible one, then you take what is nearest at hand and work out your problems on that. ~ Ernest Becker

St. Augustine says something which is a great thought and a great comfort here. He interprets the passage from the Psalms 'seek his face always' as saying: this applies 'for ever'; to all eternity. God is so great that we never finish our searching. He is always new. With God there is perpetual, unending encounter, with new discoveries and new joy. Such things are theological matters. At the same time, in an entirely human perspective, I look forward to being reunited with my parents, my siblings, my friends, and I imagine it will be as lovely as it was at our family home. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

It's a bit burned," my mother would say apologetically at every meal, presenting you with a piece of meat that looked like something - a much-loved pet perhaps - salvaged from a tragic house fire. "But I think I scraped off most of the burned part," she would add, overlooking that this included every bit of it that had once been flesh.
Happily, all this suited my father. His palate only responded to two tastes - burned and ice cream - so everything suited him so long as it was sufficiently dark and not too startlingly flavorful. Theirs truly was a marriage made in heaven, for no one could burn food like my mother or eat it like my dad. ~ Bill Bryson

In reality, the damned are in the same place as the saved - in reality! But they hate it; it is their Hell. The saved love it, and it is their Heaven. It is like two people sitting side by side at an opera or a rock concert: the very thing that is Heaven to one is Hell to the other. Dostoyevski says, 'We are all in paradise, but we won't see it'…Hell is not literally the 'wrath of God.' The love of God is an objective fact; the 'wrath of God' is a human projection of our own wrath upon God, as the Lady Julian saw - a disastrous misinterpretation of God's love as wrath. God really says to all His creatures, 'I know you and I love you' but they hear Him saying, 'I never knew you; depart from me.' It is like angry children misinterpreting their loving parents' affectionate advances as threats. They project their own hate onto their parents' love and experience love as an enemy - which it is: an enemy to their egotistic defenses against joy…

Since God is love, since love is the essence of the divine life, the consequence of loss of this life is loss of love...Though the damned do not love God, God loves them, and this is their torture. The very fires of Hell are made of the love of God! Love received by one who only wants to hate and fight thwarts his deepest want and is therefore torture. If God could stop loving the damned, Hell would cease to be pure torture. If the sun could stop shining, lovers of the dark would no longer be tortured by it. But the sun could soone ~ Peter Kreeft

God brought me to Himself at about the age of 4. My parents were devout believers and my Dad was in Bible College at the time. I remember hearing the gospel in Sunday School and I talked to my Mom about it one night before bed. It was clear to me that I was a sinner and I was not going to heaven if I died without accepting Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross for me. I was brought to Christ out of fear of going to hell. I didn't want to go there if I died and there was only one other choice in my mind as a 4 year old. I wanted to go to heaven. It was and is that simple. ~ Ben Zobrist

The spirit, if it could be seen with mortal eyes, would appear in bodily shape like a full-grown person with individual endowments that make it a counter-part of the body in which it [resides,] "that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual." (D&C 77:2.) It was that which came from God and entered at birth into the infant body prepared by its mortal parents. The spirit was of the "Lord from heaven." The physical body was "of the earth, earthy," (2 Cor. 15:47) or in other words, composed of the elements of which the things in the physical world are composed. ~ Harold B. Lee

Buckley followed the three of them into the kitchen and asked, as he had at least once a day, "Where's Susie?"

They were silent. Samuel looked at Lindsey.

"Buckley," my father called from the adjoining room, "come play Monopoly with me."

My brother had never been invited to play Monopoly. Everyone said he was too young, but this was the magic of Christmas. He rushed into the family room, and my father picked him up and sat him on his lap.

"See this shoe?" my father said.

Buckley nodded his head.

"I want you to listen to everything I say about it, okay?"

"Susie?" my brother asked, somehow connecting the two.

"Yes, I'm going to tell you where Susie is."

I began to cry up in heaven. What else was there for me to do?

"This shoe was the piece Susie played Monopoly with," he said. "I play with the car or sometimes the wheelbarrow. Lindsey plays with the iron, and when you mother plays, she likes the cannon."

"Is that a dog?"

"Yes, that's a Scottie."

"Mine!"

"Okay," my father said. He was patient. He had found a way to explain it. He held his son in his lap, and as he spoke, he felt Buckley's small body on his knee-the very human, very warm, very alive weight of it. It comforted him. "The Scottie will be your piece from now on. Which piece is Susie's again?"

"The shoe?" Buckley asked.

"Right, and I'm the car, ~ Alice Sebold

We tend to focus our attention at Christmas on the infancy of Christ.
The greater truth of the holiday is His deity.
More astonishing than a baby in the manger is the truth that this promised baby
is the omnipotent Creator of the heavens and the earth! ~ John F. MacArthur

Christ was born in Bethlehem as
Heaven sang with joy.
Roaming shepherds came to see the
Infant, swaddled boy.
Several wisemen sought him out,
Traveling from afar.
Mary wondered, looking skyward
At a bright, new star.
Sacred was the Christ child's birth.
Sacred is CHRISTMAS. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Their mother, Maxine Kettle, is president of the Australian Mothers of Multiples Association, a regular speaker at events for mothers of twins and triplets, and author of the book Mothering Multiples: The Heaven, the Hell, which has sold in countries around the world. Their father, Frank Kettle, is a well-known Sydney property developer. Their parents divorced when the girls were six. ~ Liane Moriarty

The funeral was held on a rainy Tuesday at the church where the Brendan family were members. The high school was excused for the day so the teachers and students could attend if they wished, and many did. Avivah's parents mourned their only child from the front pew, tears falling as steadily as the droplets outside, smattering faces as well as painted window panes.

After the eulogy, a song about heaven began to play over head, and as the song played, the Brendans lit a candle by the photo of their daughter, then returned to their seats. More than a few people in attendance were found dabbing at their eyes as the song came to a close. The group of mourners made their way slowly to the cemetery and laid the girl to rest, black umbrellas dotting the vivid green of the grass, grey sky bright, despite the rainfall. ~ Rebecca Harris

When human beings lose their connection to nature, to heaven and earth, then they do not know how to nurture their environmect or how to rule their world - which is saying the same thing. Human beings destroy their ecology at the same time that they destroy one another. From that perspective, healing our society goes hand in hand with healing our personal, elemental connection with the phenomenal world. ~ Chogyam Trungpa

God does not give his joy to us for ourselves alone, and if we could possess him for ourselves alone we would not possess him at all. Any joy that does not overflow from our souls and help other men to rejoice in God does not come to us form God. (But do not think that you have to see how it overflows into the souls of others. In the economy of his grace, you may be sharing his gifts with someone you will never know until you get to heaven.) ~ Thomas Merton

-Eternal Life-

I had a dream of a place where everything was at peace.
There was no more pain, no hurting or crying,
A place where death forever ceased.

There was no more hunger or disease
Nor, nations rising up against each other.
All pride and jealousy were swallowed up in the final battle.

The King has returned, so let us all rejoice.
We all gathered there to meet
As people assembled to pay homage at His feet.

Even the creatures on earth and in heaven came to proclaim
His eternal, sweet and precious name.
There we will reign with Him forevermore,
As we crowned Him King of kings and Lord of lords.

I am surrounded by thousands and thousands
Of angelic hosts singing His praises.
Oh, what a sweet sound which will continue throughout the ages.
I turned to see our loved ones who had gone on before us
We rejoiced with each other as we joined the endless chorus.

Our new bodies, how perfect we are designed.
Oh, the wisdom and knowledge of God
How unsearchable are His ways,
There will be joy and peace throughout the eternal days.

There in that holy place forever we will be,
The earth shall be full of His knowledge and glory
As waters that cover the sea.

When I woke up from that beautiful dream
I gave thanks to Jesus Christ my Savior, Who will forever reign supreme.
So, read to me the Word of Life p ~ Shane Anders

Sometimes I think I am a strange, strange creature -- something not of earth, nor yet of heaven, nor of hell. I think at times I am a little thing fallen on the earth by mistake: a thing thrown among foreign, unfitting elements, where every little door is closed -- every Why unanswered, and itself knows not where to lay its head. I feel a deadly certainty in some moments that the wild world contains not one moment of rest for me, that there will never be any rest, that my woman's-soul will go on asking long, long centuries after my woman's-body is laid in its grave. ~ Mary MacLane

But we can never forget that at the end of time, the world will have such a Happily Ever After that even the mountains will sing of it. Until then, we give people hope, we help them feel, and we create broken, beautiful things because we live in a broken, beautiful world and we should give people a glimpse of heaven amid the fragments. ~ Mirriam Neal

I'm not very good at relationships, Claire. In fact, my track record is abysmal." Claire gently squeezed Annie's shoulder. "It takes a concerted effort to make any relationship work. Your walk with God is no different. It's a lifelong process that won't be perfected until you reach Heaven. And I must warn you, Annie, just because you're a believer now doesn't mean your life will become easier. In fact, it might become much harder. ~ Mark Romang

It's natural to be skeptical of a story like Noah. However, the greatest miracle in the Bible is not Noah and the flood. The greatest miracle in the Bible is recorded in the first verse: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." If that miracle is true, then every miracle in the Bible is at least possible (including Noah's Ark). If God created the universe, then He can do whatever He wants inside it. ~ Frank Turek

When Paul was taken in chains from his filthy Roman dungeon and beheaded at the order of the opulent madman Nero, two representatives of humanity faced off, one of the best and one of the worst. One lived for prosperity on earth, the other didn't. One now lives in prosperity in heaven, the other doesn't. We remember both men for what they truly were, which is why we name our sons Paul and our dogs Nero. ~ Randy Alcorn

Legitimacy will come at the end of time, when the kingdom of men is assured. "The affair has only just
begun, it is far from being terminated, and the world has many other things to suffer, but we shall achieve
our aim, we shall be Caesar, and then we shall begin to think about universal happiness."
By then the prisoner has been executed; the Grand Inquisitors reign alone, listening to "the profound
spirit, the spirit of destruction and death." The Grand Inquisitors proudly refuse freedom and the bread of
heaven and offer the bread of this earth without freedom. "Come down from the cross and we will believe
in you," their police agents are already crying on Golgotha. But He did not come down and, even, at the
most tortured moment of His agony, He protested to God at having been forsaken. There are, thus, no
longer any proofs, but faith and the mystery that the rebels reject and at which the Grand Inquisitors scoff.
Everything is permitted and centuries of crime are prepared in that cataclysmic moment. From Paul to
Stalin, the popes who have chosen Caesar have prepared the way for Caesars who quickly learn to despise
popes. The unity of the world, which was not achieved with God, will henceforth be attempted in defiance
of God. ~ Albert Camus

It all comes down to Jesus Christ, and what you CHOOSE to believe about Him. Jesus claims He is the Son of God. Jesus claims He died for you and rose from the dead. He claims that the only way to cancel out your sin and spend eternity in heaven is to be believe that He is who He said He was. These are the claims on the table. Bold claims. its will make you wince, won't it?
Personally, I think the boldness of the claims makes the choosing a lot easier. Most people who have never actually read the menu probably assume they can order a la carte at the Jesus table or customize their own recipe of faith. But you can't say yes to the historical figure and a few parables but pass on miracles, the resurrection, and the Son-of-God thing. That is not the offering. Christ is a fixed meal. It is all or nothing with His claims. Everyone is invited, but only you can decide if you actually want to eat at His table. For those who do believe in Christ, it means getting real, being hones about your sin, and living your life as if you really mean it. ~ Carolyn Weber

The heavens are not filled with hostility. The sky does not express a frown. When I look up I do not contemplate a face of brass, but the face of infinite good will. Yet when I was a child, many a picture has made me think of God as suspicious, inhumanly watchful, always looking round the corner to catch me at the fall. That "eye," placed in the sky of many a picture, and placed there to represent God, filled my heart with chilling fear ... Heaven overflows with good will toward us! Our God not only wishes good, he wills it! ~ John Henry Jowett

Religious fanatics and Political fanatics, yet we want Nigeria to be developed.

A nation filled with blind people.

See developed nations dealing on facts and figures, discovering cures for diseases, building people with great minds through science, proposing theories, debating over them, testing them and proving them thus using such theories to invent and innovate technologies.

Here in Nigeria, we are deceiving ourselves, fasting and praying. Pointing fingers at people who won't make heaven yet they don't wanna die.

A place where asking questions is a crime and a sin. They act as if they are holier than the pope.

Greedy and blind people. ~ OMOSOHWOFA CASEY

Pardon me also, and deal mercifully with me, as often as I think of anything besides You in prayer. For I confess truly that I am accustomed to be very much distracted. Very often I am not where bodily I stand or sit; rather, I am where my thoughts carry me. Where my thoughts are, there am I; and frequently my thoughts are where my love is. That which naturally delights, or is by habit pleasing, comes to me quickly. Hence You Who are Truth itself, have plainly said: 'For where your treasure is, there is your heart also.' If I love heaven, I think willingly of heavenly things. If I love the world, I rejoice at the happiness of the world and grieve at its troubles. If I love the flesh, I often imagine things that are carnal. If I love the spirit, I delight in thinking of spiritual matters. For whatever I love, I am willing to speak and hear about. ~ Thomas A Kempis

I put my hand on the altar rail. 'What if ... what if Heaven is real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you're dying of thirst, or when someone's nice to you for no reason, or ... ' Mam's pancakes with Toblerone sauce; Dad dashing up from the bar just to tell me, 'Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite'; or Jacko and Sharon singing 'For She's A Squishy Marshmallow' instead of 'For She's A Jolly Good Fellow' every single birthday and wetting themselves even though it's not at all funny; and Brendan giving his old record player to me instead of one of his mates. 'S'pose Heaven's not like a painting that's just hanging there for ever, but more like ... Like the best song anyone ever wrote, but a song you only catch in snatches, while you're alive, from passing cars, or ... upstairs windows when you're lost ... ~ David Mitchell

Because the conversation in heaven is never revealed to Job or his friends, they understandably misjudge precisely what is at stake. This hidden information is especially poignant because, as Job argues his case before God, he believes that he can "win" if he can force God into court to account for himself, to give an explanation for his actions. In reality, Job has nothing to win because he is not on trial. ~ John H. Walton

Such threats and promises often succeed in creating stable human hierarchies and mass-cooperation networks, as long as people believe that they reflect the inevitable laws of nature or the divine commands of God, rather than just human whims. All large-scale human cooperation is ultimately based on our belief in imagined orders. These are sets of rules that, despite existing only in our imagination, we believe to be as real and inviolable as gravity. 'If you sacrifice ten bulls to the sky god, the rain will come; if you honour your parents, you will go to heaven; and if you don't believe what I am telling you – you'll go to hell.' As long as all Sapiens living in a particular locality believe in the same stories, they all follow the same rules, making it easy to predict the behaviour of strangers and to organise mass-cooperation networks. Sapiens often use visual marks such as a turban, a beard or a business suit to signal 'you can trust me, I believe in the same story as you'. Our chimpanzee cousins cannot invent and spread such stories, which is why they cannot cooperate in large numbers. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

To Hell with all racialists,' she said aloud. 'And to Hell with eugenics, degenerate heredity, miscegenation and frauds who pile up skulls like a conqueror as well. May they choke on their bones.' A passing gentleman boggled at her and crossed to the other side of La Trobe Street. 'There is no place for them in the Kingdom of Heaven,' she added, rolling the phrase over her tongue and filing it for future reference. ~ Kerry Greenwood

There is a moment in the tractate Menahot when the Rabbis imagine what takes place when Moses ascends Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. In this account (there are several) Moses ascends to heaven, where he finds God busily adding crownlike ornaments to the letters of the Torah. Moses asks God what He is doing and God explains that in the future there will be a man named Akiva, son of Joseph, who will base a huge mountain of Jewish law on these very orthographic ornaments. Intrigued, Moses asks God to show this man to him. Moses is told to 'go back eighteen rows,' and suddenly, as in a dream, Moses is in a classroom, class is in session and the teacher is none other than Rabbi Akiva. Moses has been told to go to the back of the study house because that is where the youngest and least educated students sit.

Akiva, the great first-century sage, is explaining Torah to his disciples, but Moses is completely unable to follow the lesson. It is far too complicated for him. He is filled with sadness when, suddenly, one of the disciples asks Akiva how he knows something is true and Akiva answers: 'It is derived from a law given to Moses on Mount Sinai.' Upon hearing this answer, Moses is satisfied - though he can't resist asking why, if such brilliant men as Akiva exist, Moses needs to be the one to deliver the Torah. At this point God loses patience and tells Moses, 'Silence, it's my will. ~ Jonathan Rosen

Howard had a pine display case, fastened by fake leather straps and stained to look like walnut. Inside, on fake velvet, were cheap gold-plated earrings and pendants of semiprecious stones. He opened this case for haggard country wives when their husbands were off chopping trees or reaping the back acres. He showed them the same half-dozen pieces every year the last time he came around, when he thought, This is the season - preserving done, woodpile high, north wind up and getting cold, night showing up earlier every day, dark and ice pressing down from the north, down on the raw wood of their cabins, on the rough-cut rafters that sag and sometimes snap from the weight of the dark and the ice, burying families in their sleep, the dark and the ice and sometimes the red in the sky through trees: the heartbreak of a cold sun. He thought, Buy the pendant, sneak it into your hand from the folds of your dress and let the low light of the fire lap at it late at night as you wait for the roof to give out or your will to snap and the ice to be too thick to chop through with the ax as you stand in your husband's boots on the frozen lake at midnight, the dry hack of the blade on ice so tiny under the wheeling and frozen stars, the soundproof lid of heaven, that your husband would never stir from his sleep in the cabin across the ice, would never hear and come running, half-frozen, in only his union suit, to save you from chopping a hole in the ice and sliding into it as if it were a blu ~ Paul Harding