QUOTEABLES to honor my man MLK...

*brace yourself for a word/quote/passion heavy post. If you like looking at pictures and ignoring what I say, then I suggest you skip right along here and wait for something cuter and more artsy on another day.. I am a writer, so I cannot be crafts and photos all the time. Sometimes I have to WRITE. But, fair warning, this post may be unpleasant to you.*

I don't know if you have noticed (see here, here, and here), but I am quite the fan of Martin Luther King Jr.

I mean, look up a couple inches at that blog header. King? Yeah, as in the Reverend Martin Luther.

A familiar name, yes? He gets a holiday for his stand against racism and his fight towards racial equality (which by the way is something I believe in), but there is a lot more to the Rev. King than that. People often take this day, "Martin Luther King Day," as just another reason to get out of school/work, and maybe just maybe they think for a moment about his famous "I have a dream" speech and are briefly grateful for one of the men who changed our country's history. (But most of the time people don't have a clue about anything  and just want a day off...)

Though it is what he is most remembered for, during his life King didn't only stand for racial equality. His faith in God made him see the great wrong that was going on in his world and he did something to fix it. He stood for things that challenged what was seen as normal. He took a bold stand against many things, including but not limited to racism, which were not only socially tolerated in his time, but socially and morally accepted.

I don't know if you have look around your world lately, but he didn't entirely eliminate racism, or create a world in which everyone loves each other and gets along. Those problems still exist today. But he was bold enough to see the problem and do SOMETHING, and that is why I like him so much.

There is a verse in the Old Testament of the Bible, found in Micah chapter 6, verse 8 that every time I read it I think of Martin Luther King Jr. I don't know if he considered that a life verse of his or what, but he very clearly lived it out. 

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy
   and to walk humbly with your God.

Now, as you keep all of what I just said, particularly that verse, in mind, I want to share some of my favorite King quotes (outside of "I have a dream...") with you.  I love quotes, you know that, and King is in the top two people that I quote most (Winston Churchill, another history changer, would be the other).  

**And I want you to know, all the quotes I am about to put in aren't just some nice words I pulled up in google just today so I could have a fitting post for this holiday. They are quotes which I have written in notebooks and scribbled on sticky notes and stuck in various places in my room.**

Here now, on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, are some of the amazing things he both said and lived for;

He had great, PASSIONATE faith in God;

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."

"To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing."

He had great, PASSIONATE love for others;

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?"

"The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

"There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love."

He had great PASSION for justice

"The time is always right to do what is right."

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."

"The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict."

"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."

 And because he so strongly believed in those things, he had a great PASSION for living his life to its greatest potential and to the glory of His God;

"The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important."

"Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better."

"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."

King was a man who was strong in what he believed. Not only did he believe in it, or dream about it, he stood for it. He stood for it so boldly that he got killed for it. He wouldn't be ignored, or shut up. He wouldn't back down. King was a radical. An passionate extremist. He knew why he was put on this earth, and nothing/no one, even assassination wouldn't stop him from standing for it.

My all time favorite quote by him is THIS...

"If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."-MLK (1963)

 The best part about the above quote is that he meant it. He said that some 5 years before he was assassinated. He wasn't just some face in the public eye, saying pretty things to win favor, smooth talking people into liking him, but living a life contrary to his words. He said that and then he LIVED IT! And not only did he live it, but then he DIED FOR IT!

King knew what he was made for. He had a dream, a big dream, and they assassinated him for it.  He died for that dream, because dreaming always cost you something.  

I challenge you, on this day we remember the revolutionary dreamer MLK, to think about what your dreams are.  I've often been told  (by my 3rd most quoted person, my youth pastor "Rev" Eric Peoples) that "the thing that bothers you most is probably the thing you were put on this earth to fix." Maybe you aren't going to get assassinated for it, but what would you be willing to give *everything* thing for? What are you passionate about? God put you on this earth; what for? If you still wake up every morning with breath in your lungs, there is most assuredly a reason. If you are alive, you have a purpose! You were not created to just get by living a life of mediocrity. What were you made for? What are you dreams? And what are you willing to give for them?

I have a dream. Do you?