May the Lord who is rich in mercy greatly and abundantly pour out His grace and love upon you this 2008!

     "It was Esther's habit to read a little from her Bible every night before she went to bed.  Tonight she read some verses from St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews: "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us."

Esther knew only too well that the weight she carried was too much anxiety and her besetting sin was too little faith, so the verse was particularly applicable to her.

Esther was still thinking about this when she went to sleep so perhaps it was not very strange that she should dream about it. She dreamed she was running in a race. She had run races at school...In this dream she saw the sports-field; the green turf and the blue sky and the white ropes which marked the course, and she saw the other runners who ran beside her. There was quite a lot of people standing behind the ropes but in her dream these people were not school-friends, but the great cloud of witnesses.  Esther could see them distinctly and hear them cheering her on."

                                         from "The Musgraves" by D.E. Stevenson