IF - Family Day

In honor of Family Day today, I thought I would share with you a song we are doing for Keyano College Community Choir which I accompany.  It is an arrangement of a poem by Rudyard Kipling.  You may or may not have heard it before.  I found it to be particularly moving!

IF

If you can keep your head while those around you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
if you can trust yourself when others seem to doubt you,
but make allowance for their doubting you, too;
if you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
or being lied about, to never deal in lies,
or being hated, never give yourself to hating,
nor look too good, nor talk too wise.

If you can dream and not make dreams your master,
if you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
if you can meet with triumph and disaster,
and treat those two imposters the same;
if you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
twisted 'round and 'round to make a trap for fools,
or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
then stoop and build them up with worn out tools.

If you can take the unforgiving minute
with sixty seconds worth of distance run,
yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
and what is more you'll be a man, my son.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
or walk with kings nor lose the common touch;
if neither foes nor friends can hurt you,
all people count with you, but none too much.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
with sixty seconds worth of distance run
yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
and what is more you'll be a man,
you'll be a woman, my daughter, my son.

If you can force your heart and mind and sinew
to serve your turn when you are dead and gone;
keep holding on when there is nothing in you
except the will that says to them, "Hold on!"

If you can take the unforgiving minute
with sixty seconds worth of distance reun
yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
and what is more you'll be a man,
and what is more you'll be a woman,
my daughter, my son.

I think this may be similar to what we would all like for our children in life and I wonder if some of it is what our Heavenly Father hopes for us all (parents, too!)
Have a great day filled with family.  Love you all!
Charlene xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxooooooooooooooooo