I really don’t know what happened to me for the past one month, sick, depressed, lonely.

But then I realized that my pain is nothing, when I look around. My beloved one ( I thought so that was my mistake) never got time to visit me when I was hospitalized.  All alone looking at the cealing fan and my ears eagerly waiting for the knock at the door. Any smiling face….?  Get well soon….

My Suffering is considered another aspect of our training. Suffering produces in us character and a proper disposition - a compassionate spirit. Born again launched me  into a kind of apprenticeship in training for ruler ship. True agape love (God's perfect love) is developed in the school of tribulation, trial, or suffering.

Suffering is not an accident, but a gift to be valued, for when properly received it works to enhance our eternal rank and honour.

Trouble, therefore, comes to us all, whether saint or sinner.

There are three Greek words that are translated "love" eros - the love between the sexes philos - the love of friendship and family agape - the love that characterizes God himself When God makes us, He uses the sharpest knives on His turning lathe as well. He cannot shape one without pain, but He never uses needless pain. Those who are broken in wealth, broken in self-will, broken in their ambitions, broken in their beautiful ideas, broken in worldly reputation, broken in their affections, broken in health, those who are despised and seem utterly forlorn and helpless.

I am trying to over come the forlorn, my helplessness, I am happy that I am back home can write and read.

I salute my friends who enquired about me and thank God for allowing me to write again.

It has been all week.

Ever since I arrived at work on Monday and was informed that one of the ex -colleague in the college delivered a daughter who was stillborn early that morning. All week, I have felt the impact of a loss. My soul is aching.

Where can we find comfort? A baby born still leaves the family with no memories other than those tinged with grief. The fragments of dreams and unfulfilled hopes are strewn about, and we try to comprehend the reality of a life with such overwhelming sadness.
 
How angry we are at a God who would allow such tragedy! What meaning can possibly be found in the death of one who has yet to take a single breath??

Job wrote, “A life blossoms like a flower and withers, it vanishes like a shadow and does not endure…The length of our days are set; the number of our months are with you. You set limits that we cannot pass.” (Job 14:2, 5)

When a child is born still, that flower never blossoms. The mother and father arrive expectantly at the hospital, but return home with empty arms and a grieving heart.  I am empty of prayer. That space is filled instead with tears. With shadows. We cannot yet form the words to praise Your Name, O God. So accept our tears instead.

My heart is breaking. When I am faced with a crisis, I respond by buying books. Getting my hands on anything that will give me an explanation. Some understanding. Guidance. Anything. I slip into my child’s room at night. Poppy seed, the lightest of sleepers, rouses and blinks in the dark as if to say, “Amma, what are you doing here." "I just wanted to be sure of you," I whisper. I hug him tightly, thanking God for having him each day.

What could I possibly say or does that will bring consolation? What to do to fill the emptiness? What can we do as communities do to acknowledge the loss of one who never knew the breath of life that comes from God? How can we provide comfort to the broken-hearted?
 
Ultimately, it is our presence and acknowledgement of the child that can bring some amount of strength to the mourners. God full of compassion, place these tiniest of beginnings, these slight and small beginnings, these tiny and tender roots, lacking form and countenance, but still desired and loved, among the holy and pure ones who shine brilliantly as the heavens.

I have in my hands two boxes which God gave me to hold.

He said, "Put all your sorrows in the black and all your joys in the gold."

I heeded His words, and in the two boxes both my joys and sorrows I stored. But though the gold became heavier each day The black was as light as before With curiosity, I opened the black I wanted to find out why And I saw, in the base of the box, a hole Which my sorrows had fallen out.

I showed the hole to God,and mused aloud, "I wonder where my sorrows could be."

He smiled a gentle smile at me. "My child, they're all here with me."

I asked, "God, why give me the boxes, Why the gold, and the black with the hole?"

How does colour psychology work? Colour is light, travelling to us in waves from the sun, on the same electro-magnetic spectrum as radio and television waves, microwaves, x-rays etc. Light is the only part of the spectrum that we can see, which perhaps explains why we take it less seriously than the invisible power of the other rays. Sir Isaac Newton demonstrated that light travels in waves, when he shone white light through a triangular prism and the different wavelengths refracted at different angles, enabling him to see the colours of the rainbow (the spectrum).

When light strikes any coloured object, the object will absorb only the wavelengths that exactly match its own atomic structure and reflect the rest - which is what we see. Turn this around and it is easy to understand how the colour of anything is a clear indication of its atomic structure or, in simple terms, what it is made of. When light strikes the human eye, the wavelengths do so in different ways, influencing our perceptions. In the retina, they are converted into electrical impulses that pass to the hypothalamus, the part of the brain governing our hormones and our endocrine system. Although we are unaware of it, our eyes and our bodies are constantly adapting to these wavelengths of light.

Colour is energy and the fact that it has a physical effect on us has been proved time and again in experiments - most notably when blind people were asked to identify colours with their fingertips and were all able to do so easily.

There are only eleven basic colour words in the English language, and yet there are literally millions of colours. Computers will give us sixteen million and the human eye can distinguish more than any machine. After the basic eleven, we borrow words, such as avocado (is that the flesh, or the skin?) and grape (is that deep purple or green?) to describe the myriad of shades, tones and tints. This inevitably creates confusion in colour communication. People often ask, "Do we all see colours the same?" Who knows? The point is that in colour psychology it does not seem to matter what we think we are looking at; the effect of colours on us is caused by their energy entering our bodies. Colour-blind people are also sensitive to colour psychology.

The eleven basic colours have fundamental psychological properties that are universal, regardless of which particular shade, tone or tint of it you are using. Each of them has potentially positive or negative psychological effects and which of these effects is created depends on the relationships within colour combinations.

There are four psychological primary colours - red, blue, yellow and green. They relate respectively to the body, the mind, the emotions and the essential balance between these three. The psychological properties of the eleven basic colours are as follows:

RED. Physical
Positive: Physical courage, strength, warmth, energy, basic survival, 'fight or flight', stimulation, masculinity, excitement.
Negative: Defiance, aggression, visual impact, strain.

Being the longest wavelength, red is a powerful colour. Although not technically the most visible, it has the property of appearing to be nearer than it is and therefore it grabs our attention first. Hence its effectiveness in traffic lights the world over. Its effect is physical; it stimulates us and raises the pulse rate, giving the impression that time is passing faster than it is. It relates to the masculine principle and can activate the "fight or flight" instinct. Red is strong, and very basic. Pure red is the simplest colour, with no subtlety. It is stimulating and lively, very friendly. At the same time, it can be perceived as demanding and aggressive.

BLUE. Intellectual.
Positive: Intelligence, communication, trust, efficiency, serenity, duty, logic, coolness, reflection, calm.
Negative: Coldness, aloofness, lack of emotion, unfriendliness.

Blue is the colour of the mind and is essentially soothing; it affects us mentally, rather than the physical reaction we have to red. Strong blues will stimulate clear thought and lighter, soft blues will calm the mind and aid concentration. Consequently it is serene and mentally calming. It is the colour of clear communication. Blue objects do not appear to be as close to us as red ones. Time and again in research, blue is the world's favourite colour. However, it can be perceived as cold, unemotional and unfriendly.

YELLOW. Emotional
Positive: Optimism, confidence, self-esteem, extraversion, emotional strength, friendliness, creativity.
Negative: Irrationality, fear, emotional fragility, depression, anxiety, suicide.

The yellow wavelength is relatively long and essentially stimulating. In this case the stimulus is emotional, therefore yellow is the strongest colour, psychologically. The right yellow will lift our spirits and our self-esteem; it is the colour of confidence and optimism. Too much of it, or the wrong tone in relation to the other tones in a colour scheme, can cause self-esteem to plummet, giving rise to fear and anxiety.

GREEN. Balance
Positive: Harmony, balance, refreshment, universal love, rest, restoration, reassurance, environmental awareness, equilibrium, peace.
Negative: Boredom, stagnation, blandness, enervation.

Green strikes the eye in such a way as to require no adjustment whatever and is, therefore, restful. Being in the centre of the spectrum, it is the colour of balance - a more important concept than many people realise. When the world about us contains plenty of green, this indicates the presence of water, and little danger of famine, so we are reassured by green, on a primitive level. Negatively, it can indicate stagnation and, incorrectly used, will be perceived as being too bland.

VIOLET. Spiritual
Positive: Spiritual awareness, containment, vision, luxury, authenticity, truth, quality.
Negative: Introversion, decadence, suppression, inferiority.

The shortest wavelength is violet, often described as purple. It takes awareness to a higher level of thought, even into the realms of spiritual values. It is highly introvertive and encourages deep contemplation, or meditation. It has associations with royalty and usually communicates the finest possible quality. Being the last visible wavelength before the ultra-violet ray, it has associations with time and space and the cosmos. Excessive use of purple can bring about too much introspection and the wrong tone of it communicates something cheap and nasty, faster than any other colour.

ORANGE.
Positive: Physical comfort, food, warmth, security, sensuality, passion, abundance, fun.
Negative: Deprivation, frustration, frivolity, immaturity.

Since it is a combination of red and yellow, orange is stimulating and reaction to it is a combination of the physical and the emotional. It focuses our minds on issues of physical comfort - food, warmth, shelter etc. - and sensuality. It is a 'fun' colour. Negatively, it might focus on the exact opposite - deprivation. This is particularly likely when warm orange is used with black. Equally, too much orange suggests frivolity and a lack of serious intellectual values.

PINK.
Positive: Physical tranquillity, nurture, warmth, femininity, love, sexuality, survival of the species.
Negative: Inhibition, emotional claustrophobia, emasculation, physical weakness.

Being a tint of red, pink also affects us physically, but it soothes, rather than stimulates. (Interestingly, red is the only colour that has an entirely separate name for its tints. Tints of blue, green, yellow, etc. are simply called light blue, light green…etc.) Pink is a powerful colour, psychologically. It represents the feminine principle, and survival of the species; it is nurturing and physically soothing. Too much pink is physically draining and can be somewhat emasculating.

GREY.
Positive: Psychological neutrality.
Negative: Lack of confidence, dampness, depression, hibernation, lack of energy.

Pure grey is the only colour that has no direct psychological properties. It is, however, quite suppressive. A virtual absence of colour is depressing and when the world turns grey we are instinctively conditioned to draw in and prepare for hibernation. Unless the precise tone is right, grey has a dampening effect on other colours used with it. Heavy use of grey usually indicates a lack of confidence and fear of exposure.

BLACK.
Positive: Sophistication, glamour, security, emotional safety, efficiency, substance.
Negative: Oppression, coldness, menace, heaviness.

Black is all colours, totally absorbed. The psychological implications of that are considerable. It creates protective barriers, as it absorbs all the energy coming towards you, and it enshrouds the personality. Positively, it communicates absolute clarity, with no fine nuances. It works particularly well with white. It communicates sophistication and uncompromising excellence. It creates a perception of weight and seriousness (it is a myth that black clothes are slimming). Black is essentially an absence of light, since no wavelengths are reflected and it can, therefore be menacing; many people are afraid of the dark.

WHITE.
Positive: Hygiene, sterility, clarity, purity, cleanness, simplicity, sophistication, efficiency.
Negative: Sterility, coldness, barriers, unfriendliness, elitism.

Just as black is total absorption, so white is total reflection. In effect, it reflects the full force of the spectrum into our eyes. Thus it also creates barriers, but differently from black, and it is often a strain to look at. It communicates, "Touch me not!" White is purity and, like black, uncompromising; it is clean, hygienic, and sterile. The concept of sterility can also be negative. Visually, white gives a heightened perception of space. The negative effect of white on warm colours is to make them look and feel garish.

BROWN.
Positive: Seriousness, warmth, Nature, earthiness, reliability, support.
Negative: Lack of humour, heaviness, lack of sophistication.

Brown usually consists of red and yellow, with a large percentage of black. Consequently, it has much of the same seriousness as black, but is warmer and softer. It has elements of the red and yellow properties. Brown has associations with the earth and the natural world. It is a solid, reliable colour and most people find it quietly supportive - more positively than the ever-popular black, which is suppressive, rather than supportive.

A better life has been achieved when we are no longer trying to achieve a better life. It means that we are content, as we should be, with ourselves and what we have. To be anxious for more or to envy someone else's life or possessions is self-defeating. We are then in a constant state of frustration, always hoping and waiting for more happiness.

There is, here and now, much to appreciate. There is life itself with friends, family, and everything that is naturally before us. We just have to look around and take it in. Perhaps it is time to make a list of all the good things we have to grateful for.

Are there people in your life that you would miss dearly if they were not here? When you go for a walk don't you see, hear, and smell, many things to appreciate and feel nice about? Like the flowers, trees, birds, and the clouds in the sky.  A cute pup or child enthusiastically enjoying that moment in life.
It just makes good sense to be satisfied and at peace with yourself and others, and to enjoy life now.

We live in a culture that is built upon covetousness. Consumerism fuels our economy. Consumerism is a largely a product of  Advertisments constantly encourage people to be discontent with what they have, and to feel that they need more.I have often considered what it means to be covetous. It cannot simply mean wanting things, because it is not wrong to desire beautiful or useful posessions. The verse does not say "never want anything". Forsaking covetousness does not mean forsaking all desire.

It does, however, mean that desires must not become sinful. They are sinful when they lead to discontentment and ungodly behaviour when they are not fulfilled.

God gives us the antidote to such idolatrous desires: himself. He is so satisfying, that concentrating upon him will help us to stop being covetous. He is enough. It might take me a life time to internalise that lesson.

Most people search for what they believe they lack. Yet what
they really seek is often what they overlook ... and undervalue. A search for
wealth, especially if accompanied by guilt, is a poor substitute for the state
of well-being and contentment that we call being happy.

Like love, happiness has many meanings and synonyms. A
dictionary might define happiness as a stable state of well-being.
Happiness includes a sense of being in the right place, ranging from contentment
to intense joy. Happiness refers to enjoyment of or pleasant satisfaction in
life, with security and the ability to fulfill one's wishes.

Another definition of happiness: "a continued sense of
delight, contentment, and joy emanating from a sense of self-goodness, sense of
life and sense of destiny".

Lasting happiness seems to be about about quality relationships
- including your relationship with yourself. Relationship happiness is about
enjoying who you are and sharing yourself with other people.

Child happiness seems to revolve around being loved,
exploring and preparing for independence. Adult happiness seems to
balance between taking care of self and taking care of others.

Unhappy people are often obsessed with trying to change each
other's behavior or deny each other's emotions. If you are responsible for your
own happiness, you have no use for coercion. If you do not need to coerce
others, you can fulfill your goals in ways that include freedom and
independence.

If you take responsibility for your own happiness, you reduce
the likelihood of coercing others. If other adults in your life share this
assumption and establish rules based upon it, then you and they can enjoy
independence and intimacy. Such independent intimacy is a
strong basis for happy relationships

One of the great hazards of my husband’s job is that I am forced to attend various cocktail parties around the Corporate Area so that I might scribble a few lines about the cultural mating habits of the people around. The rich are always members of the smaller bouquets. You can see by their body language (the impatient fidget, and glance at the too-expensive watch) that they are yearning for somebody to remember they are alive. The hostess of the night flits here and there like a flirtatious butterfly dabbling in various conversations. She sometimes acts like a hunting dog, guiding the ’socially inept’ into conversations with groups who couldn’t care less. But if you appear to be drowning in the high seas of intellectual conservation, just give an eye signal, and she will come hightailing in on your look, to guide you off to some other dangerous plateau. There are various characters in this group. The women are quite interesting.
You have the bulimic  who work out so much that they have tendons in their necks like the ladies on the LPGA tours (Ladies professional Golf Association); and sallow menopausal women even with one kilo of makeup on their faces.

And then, there are the gorgeous ’corporate wives’ who look like water color portraits. They smile so fiercely and brilliantly, it’s scary. They never seem to stop smiling, you can just imagine all the muscles at work in their jaws, and they secretly pray that their facial muscles don’t just cramp up on them. The funniest guys there are the oldies who ’close-mark’ the bar, gulping down huge amounts of alcohol that would paralyze an elephant baby.  When these men die, they will be so well cured,  no need for embalming, Then….there is the hollow cocktail party laugh, you know the one I mean, the ’ha-ha-ha-ha’, he he he  which sounds exactly like how it is written, but never how genuine laughter ever is in real life.

The laughs mix in with the ebb and flow of conversation like a mad symphony: metallic hee hee, staccato ha-ha, whine, buzz, giggle, hum, whine…… I wonder how I am still sane.

There was a Japanese man who came to India for sightseeing. On the last day, he hired a cab and told the driver to drive to the Airport. During the journey, a Honda drove past the taxi. Thereupon, the man leaned out of the window excitedly and yelled, "Honda, very fast! Made in Japan ! ! ! . After a while, a Toyota sped past the taxi, again, the Japanese man leaned out of the window and yelled, "Toyota, very fast! Made in Japan!" And then a
Mitsubishi sped past the taxi. For the third time, the Japanese leaned out of the window and yelled, "Mitsubishi, very fast! Made in Japan!" The driver was a little angry, but he kept quiet. And this went on for quite a
number of cars.Finally, the taxi came to the airport. The fare was 800 rupees. !!!!The Japanese exclaimed, "What??... so expensive!" There upon, the driver yelled back,

"Meter, Made in India VERY VERY FAST !!!!!"