Never again will I pity or belittle myself.

How foolish I was when I stood in despair, by the side of the road, and envied the successful and wealthy

as they paraded by. Are they blessed with unique skills, rare intelligence, heroic courage, enduring

ambition, and other outstanding qualities that I posses not? Have they been allotted more hours, each

day, in which to perform their mighty tasks? Do they have hearts full of compassion and souls overflow -ing with love that are different from mine? No! God plays no favorites. We were all fashioned from the

same clay.

Now I also know that the sadness and setbacks of my life are not unique to me. Even the wisest and

most successful of our world suffer chapters of heartbreak and failure but they, unlike me, have learned

that there is no peace without trouble, no rest without strain, no laughter without sorrow, no victory

without struggle and that is the price we all pay for living. There was a time when I paid the price willing-ly and easily but constant disappointments and defeats first eroded my confidence and then my cour -age even as drops of water will, in time, destroy the strongest granite. All that is now behind me. No

longer am I one of the living dead, remaining always in the shadows of others and hiding behind my

sorry apologies and alibis while the years waste away.

Never again will I pity or belittle myself.

Thank you, God, for playing your game with me, today, and placing in my hands these precious scrolls. I

was at the lowest ebb of my life but I should have known it is at that moment that the tide always turns.

No longer will I look mournfully to the past. It will never return. Instead, with these scrolls, I will shape the

present because it is mine and I will go forth to meet the mysterious future without fear, without doubt,

without despair.

I was formed in the image of God. There is nothing I cannot achieve if I try.

Never again will I pity or belittle myself.