Courage, dear heart
~ Aslan

Frodo: I wish The Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had ever happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to face such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

God is love. Those who live in love, live in God and God lives in them.
~ The Bible

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

The following are my favourite lines from poems – these reassure me that what I feel has been felt before and thus I am not alone.

From the poem ‘I know why the caged bird sings’ by Maya Angelou (full poem here):

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

From the poem ‘De Profundis’ by Christina Rossetti (full poem here) :

I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.

From ‘Invictus’ by W.E. Henley (full poem here):

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

From ‘A better resurrection’ by Christina Rossetti (full poem here):

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb’d too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone

From ‘A Hymn to God the Father’ by John Donne (full poem here):

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more.

From ‘When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes’ by William Shakespeare:

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

From the poem ‘Wrestling Jacob’ by Charles Wesley:

My strength is gone, my nature dies,
I sink beneath thy weighty hand,
Faint to revive, and fall to rise;
I fall, and yet by faith I stand,
I stand, and will not let Thee go,
Till I thy name, thy nature know.

Yield to me now–for I am weak;
But confident in self-despair:
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak,
Be conquer’d by my instant prayer,
Speak, or Thou never hence shalt move,
And tell me, if thy name is Love.

From ‘Shooting Flowers‘ by Justine Ashford:

You knew we choose what will last,

that it is a gift, this seeing,

and that the present may slip into the past

<p>The post Words that help me first appeared on Jenny Rowbory.</p>