Helen Steiner Rice (May 19, 1900 – April 23, 1981) was an American writer of religious and inspirational poetry.

Helen Steiner was born in Lorain, Ohio on May 19, 1900. Her father, a railroad worker, died in the influenza epidemic of 1918. She began work for a public utility and progressed to the position of advertising manager, which was rare for a woman at that time. She also became the Ohio State Chairman of the Women's Public Information Committee of the Electric Light Association, and campaigned for women's rights and improved working conditions.^[1]

In 1929 she married Franklin Dryden Rice, a bank vice-president in Dayton, Ohio. After the stock market crash in October that year, Franklin lost his job and his investments. He fell into a depression from which he never recovered, and committed suicide in 1932.^[1][2]

Rice became a successful businesswoman and lecturer, but found her most satisfying outlet in writing verse for the greeting card company Gibson Greetings. Her poems received wide exposure in the 1960s when several were read by Aladdin on the poetry segment of the Lawrence Welk television show.

The demand for her poems became so great that her books are still selling steadily after many printings, and she has been acclaimed as "America's beloved inspirational poet laureate".^[2][3] Helen Steiner Rice’s books of inspirational poetry have now sold nearly seven million copies. Her strong religious faith and the ability she had to express deep emotion gave her poems timeless appeal.

She died on the evening of April 23, 1981, a month before her 81st birthday, and was buried in Elmwood Cemeteryin Lorain, Ohio.^[4]

Pope John Paul II, President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn were admirers of her artistry.^{[citation needed](from Internet)}

Everyone Needs Someone

Helen Steiner Rice

People need people and friends need friends,
And we all need love for a full life depends -
Not on vast riches or great acclaim,
Not on success or on worldly fame,
But just in knowing that someone cares,
And holds us close in their thoughts and prayers -
For only the knowledge that we're understood,
Makes everyday living feel wonderfully good,
And we rob ourselves of life's greatest need,
When we "lock up our hearts" and fail to heed,
The outstretched hand reaching to find,
A kindred spirit whose heart and mind,
Are lonely and longing to somehow share,
Our joys and sorrows and to make us aware,
That life's completeness and richness depends,
On the things, we share with our loved ones,
and friends.

Friendships Flower

Helen Steiner Rice

Life is like a garden
And friendship like a flower,
That blooms and grows in beauty
With the sunshine and the shower.

And lovely are the blossoms
That are tended with great care,
By those who work unselfishly
To make the place fairer.

And, like the garden blossoms,
Friendship's flower grows sweeter
When watched and tended carefully
By those, we know and meet.

And, if the seed of friendship
Is planted deep and true
And watched with understanding,
Friendship's flower will bloom for you.

Being in God's Love/ Henri Nouwen 

To say with all that we have, think, feel, and are,

"God exists" is the most world-shattering statement that

a human being can make ....

Because when God exists, all that is flows from God....

However, as soon as I say, "God exists,"

my existence no longer can remain in the center,

because the essence of knowledge of God reveals

my own existence as deriving its total being from God's.

That is the true conversion experience.

I no longer let the knowledge of my existence be the center

from which I derive, project, deduct, or intuit the existence 

of God; I suddenly or slowly find my existence revealed to me

in and through the knowledge of God.

Then it becomes real for me that I can love myself and

my neighbor only because God has loved me first.

The life-converting experience is not the discovery that

I have choices to make that determine the way I live out

my existence but the answer that my existence itself is not

in the center.

Once I "know" God, that is,

once I experience God's love as the love in which all my

human experiences are anchored, 

I can only desire one thing:

to be in that love.

"Being" anywhere else, then, is shown to be illusory

and eventually lethal.