Nic Vujicic's love for Jesus

The full sermon by Nic Vujicic



Nic going about his daily life...



If you think you can't... think again...

The Meaning of Christmas

Daddy: "What gift do you want for Christmas this year?"
Little Luke: "Daddy, I want a toy bus."
Daddy: "That's easy. I'll get you one from Toys R Us."

And Daddy walked away with a smile on his face.

Little Luke turns to Mommy Lisa and whispered. "Mommy, Daddy doesn't understand that we don't need any gifts for Christmas."
Mommy Lisa: "Why is that so?"
Little Luke: "Because Jesus is the gift!"

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Isn't it amazing? Although Luke is only 4 years old, I must say he has fully understood the true meaning of Christmas.

Thoughts Leaders Embrace

1. You become what you think about most of the time.

2. The more you know about your prospect, the more the prospect feels you know what you are talking about.

3. When the time for action comes, the time for preparation has passed. Honest, intelligent effort is always rewarded.

4. Success in business today comes to those who are Fed-Ex fast and Disney-friendly.

5. You don't have to work hard for bad things to happen. You do have to work hard to make good things happen.

6. Success lingers around knowledge. Knowledge translated into intelligent action is called wisdom.

7. You impress with your promises, but inspire with your results.

8. Today's marketing challenge is finding a way to be first, best or unique.

9. You don't drift into commitment. You drift into complacency.

10. It doesn't take talent to be on time, to return a call or respond to a letter.

11. Your assets go home at night. Without them, you can't maximize your effectiveness. They are your multipliers.

12. Change is inevitable; Growth is optional.

13. Use all the brains you have - and all you can borrow. It's better to imitate than create.

14. If you keep doing what you have always done, you will keep getting what you have always gotten.

15. Don't waste time with those who waste your time.

Can water be affected by our words?

Dr Masaru Emoto, a Japanese scientist, believes so. And he has proof.

Dr. Emoto took water droplets, exposed them to various words, music, and environments, and froze them for three hours. He then examined the crystal formations under a dark field microscope. And he took photographs.
The results were totally mind-blowing.

Here’s a photo of ordinary water without any prayer spoken over it. The molecular structure is in disarray.




The photo below is water after the prayer was said. It’s simply breathtaking. (I now have a great respect for praying before meals! More on this later.)




Dr. Emoto also exposed water to Heavy Metal music. Here’s how it looks like. Looks sad if you ask me.


Here’s water exposed to classical music...


and this one exposed to folk dance music.

Looks much better, right?

Next, Dr. Emoto stuck a piece of paper with these words: “You make me sick. I will kill you.” Here’s how the frozen water droplets looks like under the microscope…



Below is how water looked like with the words “Love” over it.


The difference is amazing.

This is Polluted water…



This is water from Lourdes, France. Utterly beautiful, right?



Wait A Minute—
Aren’t You Made Up Of Water?

Yes! 72% of your body is made up of water.

Imagine how your words affect your own body. When you say, “I’m a failure,” or “I’m hopeless,” or “I won’t get well,” imagine how these words weaken your health.

Make a choice to say the best words out there. Say often, “I’m wonderful,” and “I’m beautiful,” and “I’m God’s child,” and “God has a great plan for my life!” It’s not only water.

Dr. Emoto also experimented with cooked rice.

He placed one cup of cooked rice in two airtight jars. On one jar, he wrote, “I love you,” and on the other, “You fool.” Everyday for 30 days, Dr. Emoto would say these words to each jar of rice.



After 30 days, the “I love you” rice was still white. But the “You fool” rice was so rotten, it was black.

How can you explain this?

Just as a side note: When I was a child, my mother taught me to pray before meals. Now I realize it wasn’t just a nice thing to do. When I pray over my meal, I know a material transformation takes place in the molecular level of the food that I pray for. I say, “Be blessed,” to the water and food on the table—and I expect it to be blessed.

The above is sent to me by a friend. I hope you'll be blessed by it.

We thank God for all the things He has blessed us with and for creating us. Glory to Him forever. God bless you and family.

with precised planning, nothing is impossible

motivational video

today is Vivaldi's birthday!

Logo from Google website: http://www.google.com.sg/

Google celebrated Antonio Vivaldi's birthday with a Google logo dedicated to him. Isn't this beautiful? I think it is great artwork done and I applaud the creative director who has done this. The colours blended together so nicely and the intricate details just made it so irresistable. I have to blog it.

I have noticed that recently Google have been changing their Google search logo almost everyday and I must say their creativity has attracted my attention. I like innovative websites. I like innovative people.

I used to be a Yahoo user, but I have switched to Google since I started using Gmail account and am impressed by the intelligent collapsing of emails with the same subject header. And I have never looked back since. I'm a happy user. So far expectations have been exceeded. Well done Google team!

the hidden messages in water

Excerpt from "The True Power of Water" by Masaru Emoto ~

I was certain that the difference in ice-crystal formation was not solely due to the presence or absence of chlorine but ti the other information affecting it.

To test this, I put water into two glass bottles. On one bottle, I pasted a label typed "Thank you," and on the other, "You fool," in such a way that water would be able to "read" them. The water in both bottles was the same. I then froze the water in each bottle.

The results were more than supportive of my theory; the water in the bottle with "Thank you" formed beautiful hexagonal crystals, while the one with "You fool" had only fragments of crystals.

If water collects information and its crystals reflect those characteristics, it means that the quality of water changes based on the information it receives. In other words, the information we give to water changes its quality.

I was more motivated than ever to study water, and at the same time, I started to think about how people would be able to become happy with good water.


Water Understands Words

As this experiment convinced me that my theory was correct, we then began to give water various information, freeze it, and photograph the crystals. The results were very interesting.

We consistently found that water responded to positive words by forming beautiful crystals. As if it wanted to express its joyous feeling, the crystals opened up like a flower. In contrast, when water was shown negative words, it did not form crystals.

For example, when we showed water the word "happiness", it formed crystals with well-balanced shapes like beautifully cut diamonds. On the other hand, water exposed to the word "unhappiness" resulted in broken and unbalanced crystals. That water seemed to have tried hard to form crystals, but it exhausted its strength and crashed, happiness slipping away from it.

We continued to show a pair of opposite words to the same water: "well done" versus "no good", "like" versus "dislike", "power"versus "powerless", "angel" versus "devil" and "peace" versus "war". Water formed crystals only when it was shown positive words.

Interestingly, water responded to foreign words in a similar but not exact manner as it did to Japanese words. Water formed beautiful crystals to all the words expressing gratitude all over the world, such as "Thank you" (English), "多谢" (Chinese), merci (French), danke (German), grazie (Italian) and kamusamunida (Korean).

For more on this research, you can click here to http://educate-yourself.org/cn/emotohiddenmessageswater14oct06.shtml

the royalty rule

If you want to be treated like royalty, dress like one and act like one.

People with royalty blood always exude a certain aura that immediately, you recognize them to be of the royal blood. Why?

Royalty speak with a certain confidence with excellent manners. Do you ever see royalty gossip? Do you hear royalty swear or use vulgarities? Never! If you want to be treated like royalty, earn your respect!

Royalty dress immaculately at any occasion. Do you ever see royalty wearing shabby, untidy or revealing clothes in public? Do you see royalty walk around in flip flops? Never! If you want to be treated like royalty, dress like one!

"Daddy, how come you always say 'No' to me?"

Kids are just so innocent and many a times, they ask the most direct questions. And adults have to answer carefully because their little brains are absorbing information at a rate that is almost equivalent, if not faster, than a dry, cracking sponge absorbing water.

My friend’s daughter asked one difficult question to her father. “Daddy, how come you always say ‘No’ to me?”

How will you answer this question if you were the father? For me, I will probably be dumbfounded for a while, thinking of the appropriate words I should use. On one hand, I do not want to hurt the feelings of the little one. On the other hand, I want to impart the correct values! I felt like I was doing a balancing act on a see-saw alone!

The father, in stark contrast, was as cool as a cucumber! He replied in a matter-of-fact tone, “That’s because you ask the wrong question, dear. If you had asked me, ‘Daddy, can I do more homework?’ That answer would have been ‘Yes.’ Or if you had asked me, ‘Daddy, can I do my homework first before watching TV?’ My answer would have been ‘Yes’ too!”

I take my hat off him. He’s simply amazing.

mariah carey's walk-in wardrobe

Partners & Marriage by Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz

Eduardo Calasanz was a student at the Ateneo de Manila University,Philippines, where he had Father Ferriols as professor. Father Ferriols, at that time, was the Philosophy department head. Currently he still teaches Philosophy for graduating college students in Ateneo.

Father Ferriols has been very popular for his mind opening and enrichingclasses but was also notorious for the grades he gives. Still people took his classes for the learning and deep insight they take home with them everyday (if only they could do something about the grades...)

Anyway, come grade giving time, (Ateneo has letter grading systems, the highest being an A, lowest at D, with F for flunk), Fr Ferriols had this long discussion with the registrar people because he wanted to give Calasanz an A+. Either that or he doesn't teach at all...Calasanz got his A+. Read the paper below to find out why.

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PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE By Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz

I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn't fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.

When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability,or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing todo. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at older couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.

And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each other's presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other's foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the others habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other?

The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the earlystages. Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side.

This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.

The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other's laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept up into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.

This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility. One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each others company over the long term.

If your laughter together is good and healthy and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new.

Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become based on being critical together.

After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can't accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you will not respect each other.

Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance does not become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.

There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny.

If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until you live in separate worlds where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.

So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation.

Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around us every day. To us they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe.

Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. Our love is planted like aseed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come.

If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger. It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when it cooled Iwould be left with something lesser and bitter.

But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presence, two separate consciousness come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become one.

There is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers.. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken is somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the richness that it alone contains.

But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens that experience into something richer and more complex.

So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation. If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner notchosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers.

If not, then wait. The easy grace of a marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom... endlessly.

what my birthday says about me...

You have the purity and sweetness of a girl.

And no matter how old you get, you can stay youthful.

Your attitude is very straight forward and bold.

You have quick mind, and a sharp instinct to read the other person's mind.

You are an active woman.

Nevertheless, you also possess a motherly character.

You are kind and can show consideration to others.

You tend to be rather argumentative, and will not accept something that is unreasonable.

It takes time to gain your consent.

You are independent, and has a challenging spirit to achieve your objectives and ideals.

Once you start on something, you will not give up half way, or show weakness.

You know how to get on in life, and are a calculative woman.

Economic wise, you've got your feet steadily on the ground.

You are rather cautious type of person.

You don't tend to take every word of other person straightly.

You try to read behind the lines, very carefully.

You tend to get lost in your thought.

Nevertheless, you also think a lot about art, and are a romantic sort of person.

Even after you get married, you can be successful as a professional.

salsa

After the intensive Division U Council meeting to discuss High Performance Leadership Manual, we were about to adjourn home when David asked me to go with him to the Salsa club just across our meeting place at Amara hotel. At first, I was a little apprehensive as I was a beginner really and the last time I danced salsa was about 2 years ago and all I had was about 6 lessons. But I couldn't resist and went ahead despite not wearing proper dancing shoes as I was not prepared!

David just pulled me onto the dance floor in an attempt to revive those lapsed memories of the dance steps! I was really tensed up! David kept shaking my arms to help me relax my stiffened muscles! Gosh, I was just spun round and round and getting dizzy! But it was fun... and I'm determined to pick up salsa again!

with a little faith

When I read this story in my email this morning... I was so touched by Faith's strength and will that I had to post it on my blog for all to read. And yes, Faith is a dog, but he probably demonstrated the phrase "When there is a will, there is a way" better than anyone of us.

***

Faith was born on Christmas eve in 2002 with only 3 legs - 2 healthy hind legs and 1 abnormal front leg which had to be amputated. Being a puppy still, of course, he could not walk when he was just borned. Even his mother did not want him.



His first owner also did not think that he could survive and even thought of putting him to sleep. But his present owner, Jude Stringfellow met him and wanted to take care of him. She is determined to teach and train this dog to walk by himself. Therefore, she named him "Faith".

In the beginning, she put Faith on a surfing board to let him feel the movements. Later, she used peanut butter on a spoon to lure and reward him to stand up and jump around. Even the other dog at home also helped to encourage him to walk.

Miraculously, Faith learned to balance on his 2 hind legs only after 6 months and he even jumped to move forward. After further training in the snow, he now can walk like a human being!

Faith loves to walk around now. No matter where he goes, he just attracts all the people around him. He is not becoming famous on the international scene and has even appeared on various newpapers and TV shows. There is even one book entitled "With a little faith" being published about him. He was even considered to appear in one of the Harry Potter movies. His present owner, Jude Stringfellow has given up her teaching post and plans to take him around the world to preach that even without a perfect body, one can have a perfect soul.

blokus

Online gaming.... Try it out! Click on Blokus!
C'mon it's a good form of de-stress!!!

the last lecture

Randy Pausch was an American professor @ Carnegie Mellon University, CMU. In August 2006, Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He proceed with an aggressive cancer treatment. However, in August 2007, the cancer had metastasized to his liver and spleen. That meant the cancer was terminal. At that time, doctors estimated he would remain healthy for another 3 to 6 months. On May 2, 2008, a scan showed that his cancer had spread to his lungs and some lymph nodes in his chest. Now there was a total of 11 tumors and time was slipping away fast.

The Last Lecture

This was a ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical" final talk," A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." where they considered their demise and told expound on what matters most to them. Randy was asked to give such a lecture but the irconic this for him is that he didn't have to imagine that it was his last. It just was.

However his lecture was not about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment. It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. Pausch delivered his "Last Lecture," titled "Really Achieving YourChildhood Dreams," at CMU on September 18, 2007.

These are the links

http://www.cmu.edu/uls/journeys/randy-pausch/index.html

http://www.thelastlecture.com/

http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/

A few days ago on 25July 2008, Randy left us.

If today is the day you leave, are you ready for it?