john_sampson (john_sampson) wrote in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} ljbahai,@ 2005-06-27 01:53:00 |
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Abdu'l Baha wrote "to make a sacrifice is to receive a gift". There is so much truth to that, though most of the time it's hard to see.
I have a memory of being on the bus in Ecuador coming back from a town I would go to on Saturdays. It was about 2 1/2 hours of traveling each way, and then doing a couple children's classes and visiting a couple people. It was a tiring day, and sometimes I was a little less than enthusiastic about it. But this one day on the bus coming home, I was overcome with such a profound sense of peace and joy, it made all of the trips more than worthwhile.
There's really no way to explain that brief experience in a way that would do it justice, but perhaps I don't need to. Perhaps you already know what I'm talking about.
Indulge not your bodies with rest, but work with all your souls, and with all your hearts cry out and beg of God to grant you His succour and grace. Thus may ye make this world the Abha Paradise, and this globe of earth the parade ground of the realm on high. If only ye exert the effort, it is certain that these splendours will shine out, these clouds of mercy will shed down their rain, these life-giving winds will rise and blow, this sweet-smelling musk will be scattered far and wide.
~ Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 245
I have a memory of being on the bus in Ecuador coming back from a town I would go to on Saturdays. It was about 2 1/2 hours of traveling each way, and then doing a couple children's classes and visiting a couple people. It was a tiring day, and sometimes I was a little less than enthusiastic about it. But this one day on the bus coming home, I was overcome with such a profound sense of peace and joy, it made all of the trips more than worthwhile.
There's really no way to explain that brief experience in a way that would do it justice, but perhaps I don't need to. Perhaps you already know what I'm talking about.
Indulge not your bodies with rest, but work with all your souls, and with all your hearts cry out and beg of God to grant you His succour and grace. Thus may ye make this world the Abha Paradise, and this globe of earth the parade ground of the realm on high. If only ye exert the effort, it is certain that these splendours will shine out, these clouds of mercy will shed down their rain, these life-giving winds will rise and blow, this sweet-smelling musk will be scattered far and wide.
~ Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 245
