I was told that in this world we will have troubles; the only people I' m worried about are those who breeze through this life without a care in the world in their lives or for the pains of others; whoever they are I know I will never see them in the end unless they wake up to this illusionary classroom we must endure for a time.

I had a friend named Diane Dobson who had difficulties that would make us both fall on our knees with thankfulness that we have the abilities we do have. One night she went to bed and woke up with the entire right side of her body paralyzed from a cerebral blood clot that caused a stroke. She had diabetes before that time and needed insulin injections daily. In time, she became blind and wheelchair bound. Long ago at the end of her rope she sent out a message as a plea for help as she was about to commit suicide. It was at the dawn of the Internet and text message were hard to send and receive; anyway it was back in 1995 we met over the Internet.

Despite her great daily challenges which she faced alone with only the company of her dog, we stayed in touch by e-mail with an agreement to meet for coffee and muffins sometime when I could fly from Korea to Canada . Well that trip came last August 3, 2008 when I tried to visit my “family” near Boston. After spending 65 lonely hours in a Hotel in Chelsea, family never came but made extreme efforts to block my contacts. Exhausted from a trip from around the world, I had no strength to make the little trip to Canada to visit my adopted mom Diane.

I made the biggest mistake of my life when I flew back to Korea; I should have just walked into the woods outside Boston and went to sleep. However I flew back to Korea, the only reality that was familiar to me, to encounter something no soul should have to experience. When I began to see the sunlight again the messages from Diane had stopped. I made great efforts to contact her by phone but the line was now silent.

I remember her struggles and her determination to fight on as long as she could; this she did regularly with unending messages of humor and encouragement to everyone who would receive them. She once listened to the story of my life and said with great honestly and seriousness that she would never want to trade places with me.

Diane no longer has to struggle for she has now entered her long awaited rest she well deserved. I still have the promise with her for coffee and muffin and I know I will keep my promise because she has only gone on before me to stand on her front porch looking out across a path that leads to her house where she wait even now.

Our time here is ever so short but just long enough to meet a few of those who will graduate to the day ahead of this sometimes beautiful but frequently grief fill dream. We all seem to emerge into this world out of a simple joyful dream that eventually become something a kin to nightmare; blessed are those who can fall asleep at night to escape it for a moment; yet there are a few who have been assigned the incomprehensible reality that cuts the boundary between the dream and waking world and find that the battles we must face in the waking nightmare are carried on over into our world of dreams making an unending existence that would make the strongest celestial beings tremble.

Something is going to happen, something from this realm of waking dreams and it will fall upon this world like a sudden dawn; few will laugh, some will be silent and many will cry. I miss Diane but I know she is much happier now. As these last few trials are dealt with, I know she is pouring that coffee and warming a fresh blueberry muffin even now.

English Lessons from the days when Meaning Was Conveyed Gracefully

The very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless. Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.--I THESS. v. 23, 24.

Be still, my soul!--the Lord is on thy side;     Bear patiently the cross of grief and pain;   Leave to thy God to order and provide,--     In every change He faithful will remain. HYMNS FROM THE LAND OF LUTHER.

It was no relief from temporal evils that the Apostle promised. No; the mercy of God might send them to the stake, or the lions; it was still His mercy, if it but kept them "unspotted from the world." It might expose them to insult, calumny, and wrong; they received it still as mercy, if it "established them in every good word and work." O brethren! how many of you are content with _such_ faithfulness as this on the part of your heavenly Father? Is this, indeed, the tone and tenor of your prayers? WM. ARCHER BUTLER. The highest pinnacle of the spiritual life is not happy joy in unbroken sunshine, but absolute and undoubting trust in the love of God. A. W. THOROLD.