Archive for January, 2010
Two Brothers
Two brothers worked together on the family farm. One was married and had a large family. The other was single. At the day’s end, the brothers shared everything equally, produce and profit.
Then one day the single brother said to himself, “It’s not right that we should share equally the produce and the profit. I’m alone and my needs are simple.” So each night he took a sack of grain from his bin and crept across the field between their houses, dumping it into his brother’s bin.
Meanwhile, the married brother said to himself, “Its not right that we should share the produce and the profit equally. After all, I’m married and I have my wife and my children to look after me in years to come. My brother has no one, and no one to take care of his future.” So each night, he took a sack of grain and dumped it into his single brother’s bin.
Both men were puzzled for years because their supply of grain never dwindled. Then one dark night the two brothers bumped into each other. Slowly it dawned on them what was happening. They dropped their sacks and embraced one another.
-Unknown
JUDGE ME BY THE FOOTPRINTS I LEAVE BEHIND
A story is told about a soldier who was finally coming home after having fought in Vietnam. He called his parents from San Francisco. “Mom and Dad, I’m coming home, but I’ve got a favor to ask. I have a friend I’d like to bring with me.” “Sure,” they replied, “we’d love to meet him.”
”There’s something you should know the son continued, “he was hurt pretty badly in the fighting. He stepped on a land mined and lost an arm and a leg. He has nowhere else to go, and I want him to come live with us.” ”I’m sorry to hear that, son. Maybe we can help him find somewhere to live.”
“No, Mom and Dad, I want him to live with us.” “Son,” said the father, “you don’t know what you’re asking. Someone with such a handicap would be a terrible burden on us. We have our own lives to live, and we can’t let something like this interfere with our lives. I think you should just come home and forget about this guy. He’ll find a way to live on his own.” Read the rest of this entry »
THROUGH ME
Through me
let there be kind words, a warm smile, and a caring heart.
Through me
let there be a willingness to listen and a readiness to understand.
Through me
let there be dependability, steadfastness, trust and loyalty.
Through me
let there be compassion, forgiveness, mercy and love.
Through me
let there be every quality I find, O Lord, in Thee.
—Unknown
LOVE IS PATIENT AND KIND
“Love never gives up. Love cares for others more than for self” (1Corinthians 13:1).
Someone shared this story with me and it reminded me of how often we make judgements about situations or people without knowing all the facts. How wrong we can be:
A man was travelling home by bus, when the bus stopped to pick someone up, a father with several children got on. The children were very unruly. They wouldn’t sit still. They kept changing seats and were fighting. They were doing all the annoying things that children do when parents don’t control them.
The father had taken the seat beside the first man, who by now was getting more annoyed by the minute, thinking, Why doesn’t he say something to control his children?”
Finally, he could take it no longer. He turned to the father and blurted, Your children are out of control. Why don’t you do something?” Read the rest of this entry »
EACH DAY IS A GIFT
The 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with her hair fashionably coifed and makeup perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today. Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary.
After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. “I love it,” she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy. Read the rest of this entry »
THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL
A weary mother returned from the store,
Lugging groceries through the kitchen door.
Awaiting her arrival was her 8 year old son,
Anxious to relate what his younger brother had done.
“While I was out playing and Dad was on a call,
T.J. took his crayons and wrote on the wall!
It’s on the new paper you just hung in the den.
I told him you’d be mad at having to do it again.”
She let out a moan and furrowed her brow,
“Where is your little brother right now?”
She emptied her arms and with a purposeful stride,
She marched to his closet where he had gone to hide. Read the rest of this entry »
MORE STRENGTH AVAILABLE
A little boy was spending his Saturday morning playing in his sandbox. He had with him his box of cars and trucks, his plastic pail, and a shiny, red plastic shovel. In the process of creating roads and tunnels in the soft sand, he discovered a large rock in the middle of the sandbox. The lad dug around the rock, managing to dislodge it from the dirt. With a little bit of struggle, he pushed and nudged the rock across the sandbox by using his feet. (He was a very small boy and the rock was very huge.)
When the boy got the rock to the edge of the sandbox, he found that he couldn’t roll it up and over the little wall. Determined, the little boy shoved, pushed, and pried, but every time he thought he had made some progress, the rock tipped and then fell back into the sandbox. The little boy grunted, struggled, pushed, shoved-but his only reward was to have the rock roll back, smashing his chubby fingers. Finally he burst into tears of frustration. Read the rest of this entry »
THE COOKIE THIEF
A woman was waiting at an airport one night, with several long hours before her flight. She hunted for a book in the airport shops, bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.
She was engrossed in her book but happened to see, that the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be. . .grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between, which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.
So she munched the cookies and watched the clock, as the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock. She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by, thinking, “If I wasn’t so nice, I would blacken his eye.”
With each cookie she took, he took one too, when only one was left, she wondered what he would do. With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh, he took the last cookie and broke it in half.
He offered her half, as he ate the other, she snatched it from him and thought… oooh, brother. This guy has some nerve and he’s also rude, why he didn’t even show any gratitude!
She had never known when she had been so galled, and sighed with relief when her flight was called. She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate, refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate.
She boarded the plane, and sank in her seat, then she sought her book, which was almost complete. As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise, there was her bag of cookies, in front of her eyes.
If mine are here, she moaned in despair, the others were his, and he tried to share. Too late to apologize, she realized with grief, that she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.
Author: Valerie Cox
How many times in our lives have we absolutely known that something was a certain way, only to discover later that what we believed to be true … was not?
DO MORE
Do more than exist–love.
Do more than hear–listen.
Do more than agree–cooperate.
Do more than talk–communicate.
Do more than spend–invest.
Do more than think–create.
Do more than work–excel.
Do more than share–give.
Do more than decide–discern.
Do more than consider–commit.
Do more than help–serve.
Do more than coexist–reconcile. Read the rest of this entry »