Time to think

My brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my sister's bureau and lifted out a tissue-wrapped package.

"This," he said, "is not a slip. This is lingerie." He discarded the tissue and handed me the slip. It was exquisite; silk, handmade and trimmed with a cobweb of lace. The price tag with an astronomical figure on it was still attached. "Jan bought this the first time we went to New York, at least 8 or 9 years ago. She never wore it. She was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is the occasion." He took the slip from me and put it on the bed with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician. His hands lingered on the soft material for a moment, then he slammed the drawer shut and turned to me. "Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you're alive is a special occasion."

I remembered those words through the funeral and the days that followed when I helped him and my niece attend to all the sad chores that follow an unexpected death. I thought about them on the plane returning to California from the Midwestern town where my sister's family lives. I thought about all the things that she hadn't seen or heard or done. I thought about the things that she had done without realizing that they were special.

I'm still thinking about his words, and they've changed my life. I'm reading more and dusting less. I'm sitting on the deck and admiring the view without fussing about the weeds in the garden. I'm spending more time with my family and friends and less time in committee meetings. Whenever possible, life should be a pattern of experience to savor, not endure. I'm trying to recognize these moments now and cherish them. I'm not "saving" anything; we use our good china and crystal for every special event-such as losing a pound, getting the sink unstopped, the first camellia blossom. I wear my good blazer to the market if I like it. My theory is if I look prosperous, I can shell out $28.49 for one small bag of groceries without wincing. I'm not saving my good perfume for special parties; clerks in hardware stores and tellers in banks have noses that function as well as my party-going friends. "Someday" and "one of these days" are losing their grip on my vocabulary. If it's worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now. 

I'm not sure what my sister would've done had she known that she wouldn't be here for the tomorrow we all take for granted. I think she would have called family members and a few close friends. She might have called a few former friends to apologize and mend fences for past squabbles. I like to think she would have gone out for a Chinese dinner, her favorite food. I'm guessing - I'll never know.

It's those little things left undone that would make me angry if I knew that my hours were limited. Angry because I put off seeing good friends whom I was going to get in touch with - "someday". Angry because I hadn't written certain letters that I intended to write - one of these days. Angry and sorry that I didn't tell my husband and daughter often enough how much I truly love them.

I'm trying very hard not to put off, hold back, or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives. And every morning when I open my eyes, I tell myself that it is special.

Every day, every minute, every breath truly is... a gift from God.

May God litter your life with blessings!

"You've got to dance like nobody's watching, and love like it's never going to hurt."

"People say true friends must always hold hands, but true friends don't need to hold hands because they know the other hand will always be there."

-- Author Unknown

Time Management

An old story with a new ending.....

One day, an expert in time management was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration those students will never forget. As he stood in front of the group of high-powered overachiever s he said, "Okay, time for a quiz" and he pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouth mason jar and set it on the table in front of him.

He also produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, "Is this jar full?"

Everyone in the class yelled, "Yes." The time management expert replied, "Really?" He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. He dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. He then asked the group once more, "Is the jar full?"

By this time the class was on to him. "Probably not," one of them answered. "Good!" he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "Is this jar full?"

"No!" the class shouted. Once again he said, "Good." Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked at the class and asked, "What is the point of this illustration?"

One eager beaver raised his hand and said, "The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in it!" "No," the speaker replied, "that's not the point.

The truth this illustration teaches us is:

If you don't put the big rocks in first, you'll never get them in at all."

What are the 'big rocks' in your life, time with your loved ones, your faith, your education, your dreams, a worthy cause, teaching or mentoring others? Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you'll never get them in at all.

So, tonight, or in the morning, when you are reflecting on this short story, ask yourself this question: What are the 'big rocks' in my life?

Then, put those in your jar first.

The Water

It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. We had not seen rain in almost a month. The crops were dying. Cows had stopped giving milk. The creeks and streams were long gone back into the earth. It was a dry season that would bankrupt several farmers before it was through. Every day, my husband and his brothers would go about the arduous process of trying to get water to the fields. Lately this process had involved taking a truck to the local water rendering plant and filling it up with water. But severe rationing had cut everyone off. If we didn't see some rain soon...we would lose everything. It was on this day that I learned the true lesson of sharing and witnessed the only miracle I have seen with my own eyes. I was in the kitchen making lunch for my husband and his brothers when I saw my six-year old son, Billy, walking toward the woods. He wasn't walking with the usual carefree abandon of a youth but with a serious purpose. I could only see his back. He was obviously walking with a great effort...trying to be as still as possible. Minutes after he disappeared into the woods, he came running out again, toward the house. I went back to making sandwiches; thinking that whatever task he had been doing was completed. Moments later, however, he was once again walking in that slow purposeful stride toward the woods.

This activity went on for an hour: walk carefully to the woods, run back to the house. Finally I couldn't take it any longer and I crept out of the house and followed him on his journey (being very careful not to be seen...as he was obviously doing important work and didn't need his Mommy checking up on him). He was cupping both hands in front of him as he walked; being very careful not to spill the water he held in them...maybe two or three tablespoons were held in his tiny hands. I sneaked close as he went into the woods. Branches and thorns slapped his little face but he did not try to avoid them. He had a much higher purpose. As I leaned in to spy on him, I saw the most amazing site. Several large deer loomed in front of him. Billy walked right up to them. I almost screamed for him to get away. A huge buck with elaborate antlers was dangerously close. But the buck did not threaten him...he didn't even move as Billy knelt down. And I saw a tiny fawn laying on the ground, obviously suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion, lift its head with great effort to lap up the water cupped in my beautiful boy's hand.

When the water was gone, Billy jumped up to run back to the house and I hid behind a tree. I followed him back to the house; to a spigot that we had shut off the water to. Billy opened it all the way up and a small trickle began to creep out. He knelt there, letting the drip, drip slowly fill up his makeshift "cup," as the sun beat down on his little back. And it came clear to me. The trouble he had gotten into for playing with the hose the week before. The lecture he had received about the importance of not wasting water. The reason he didn't ask me to help him.

It took almost twenty minutes for the drops to fill his hands. When he stood up and began the trek back, I was there in front of him. His little eyes just filled with tears. "I'm not wasting," was all he said. As he began his walk, I joined him...with a small pot of water from the kitchen. I let him tend to the fawn. I stayed away. It was his job. I stood on the edge of the woods watching the most beautiful heart I have ever known working so hard to save another life. As the tears that rolled down my face began to hit the ground, they were suddenly joined by other drops...and more drops...and more. I looked up at the sky. It was as if God, himself, was weeping with pride. Some will probably say that this was all just a huge coincidence. That miracles don't really exist. That it was bound to rain sometime. And I can't argue with that...I'm not going to try. All I can say is that the rain that came that day saved our farm...just like that actions of one little boy saved another.

The Tea cup

There was a couple who used to go to England to shop in the beautiful stores. They both liked antiques and pottery and especially teacups. This was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

One day in this beautiful shop they saw a beautiful teacup. They said, "May we see that? We've never seen one quiet so beautiful." As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke, "You don't understand," it said, "I haven't always been a teacup."  "There was a time when I was red and I was clay. My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over and I yelled out, 'Let me alone,' but he only smiled, 'Not yet.'

"Then I was placed on a spinning wheel," the teacup said, "and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. 'Stop it! I'm getting dizzy!' I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, 'Not yet.'

"Then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I wondered why he wanted to burn me, and I yelled and knocked at the door. I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips, as he shook his head, 'Not yet!'

"Finally the door opened, he put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. 'There that's better,' I said. And he brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible; I thought I would gag. 'Stop it, stop it!' I cried. He only nodded, 'Not yet.'

"Then suddenly he put me back into the oven, not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded, I screamed. I cried. All the time I could see him through the opening nodding his head saying, 'Not yet!'

"Then I knew there wasn't any hope. I would never make it. I was ready to give up. But the door opened and he took me out and placed me on the shelf. One hour later he handed me a mirror and said, 'Look at yourself.' And I did. I said, 'That's not me; that couldn't be me. It's beautiful. I'm beautiful.'

"'I want you to remember, then,' he said, 'I know it hurts to be rolled and patted, but if I had left you alone, you'd have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I knew it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn't put you there, you would have cracked.

"'I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn't done that, you never would have hardened; you would not have had any color in your life. And if I hadn't put you back in the second oven, you wouldn't survive for very long because the hardness would not have held.

"'Now you are a finished product. You are what I had in mind when I first began you.'"

Jeremiah 18:6 "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel."

-- Author Unknown

Sandbox Rock

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 no 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, however, 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. 

All this time the boy's father watched from his living room window as the drama unfolded. At the moment the tears fell, a large shadow fell across the boy and the sandbox. It was the boy's father. Gently but firmly he said, "Son, why didn't you use all the strength that you had available?" 

Defeated, the boy sobbed back, "But I did, Daddy, I did! I used all the strength that I had!"

"No, son," corrected the father kindly. "You didn't use all the strength you had. You didn't ask me."

With that the father reached down, picked up the rock, and removed it from the sandbox.

Do you have "rocks" in your life that need to be removed? Are you discovering that you don't have what it takes to lift them? There is One who is always available to us and willing to give us the strength we need. When the apostle Paul faced times of a broken spirit and sapped strength, he proclaimed to the Corinthian church, "My grace is enough for you. When you are weak, then my power is made perfect in you" (2 Corinthians 12:9b NCV). 

When we are broken in spirit and our strength is not sufficient, remember that our loving Father is always there who is ready to help at any time. All we have to do is JUST ASK HIM.

What You Will Be

As I gazed up at the mountains, I was awed by their majesty;

I bowed my head and asked myself, "Why should He care for me?

I am not great like the mountains that tower so high above,

What is there about me that God can find to love?"

"Father, I am not strong like the wind that makes your tall trees sway,

I cannot sing sweetly like your birds; will you love me anyway?

But most of all, I am simply me, and often have cause to fear,

In spite of all my weaknesses, do you promise to be near?"

With eyes closed tight against my tears, I wished He could hear me pray.

Then I felt His Spirit tell me, "Child, look up, I have something tosay.

"You are simply you, the spirit I love, a part of my great plan.

I put you here to learn of life and to return to me again."

"You are more beautiful to me than the loveliest mountain I made,

And your strength exceeds that of the wind's, so do not be afraid.

I love you not for what you are, but for what I know you will be.

I am always beside you watching you grow, you are very special to me."

A smile touched my lips - I knew it was true, my Father had always been there.

Giving me comfort and blessings and love and my own special talents toshare.

So I do my best to make Him proud. I am not afraid, for you see,

He loves me not for what I am, but for what He knows I will be.

Forgiveness

On June 8, 1972, a nine-year-old Vietnamese girl, her clothes flaming due to gasoline bombs, fled the American-led assault on her village of Trang Bang. With her eyes screwed shut and her mouth spread wide in a scream of pain, she was captured on film in America’s most remembered Vietnam wartime photo. 

In Officer John Plummer’s nightmares, this picture flashed huge, in black and white, to a sound track of children screaming. His order had directed bombers to shower Kim Phuc’c village with the chemical explosives.  For years, guilt over destroying and maiming the villagers haunted the officer.  Women and alcohol were his choice of escape. 

Twenty years after the destruction of the village, officer Plummer asked Christ to take control of his life, unleashing God’s ultimate power to end guilt. Although free from guilt, he carried inside himself scars somehow linked to the thick, white scars on the neck, arm, and back of the now-grown Vietnamese girl. Six years later, Plummer knew he needed to find her.  In an effort to meet her face-to-face, he tracked her down while she was visiting America. 

Unlike the June 1972 event, no photographer captured the moment when Plummer explained to Kim Phuc who he was. But in the middle of a busy sidewalk, the soldier, now 49 years old, and the child, now 33 years old, embraced. “She just opened her arms to me,” Plummer later said. “I fell into her arms sobbing. All I could say is, I’m so sorry. I’m just so sorry.” “ It’s all right,” she replied as she patted Plummer’s back. “I forgive. I forgive.” 

Nothing you’ve ever done is too bad to ask forgiveness for. And with God, it’s never too late to ask for forgiveness. God waits patiently for you to come to Him and to ask forgiveness for your sins. Because of what Christ has done for us, God “is faithful and just to forgive us, and to cleanse us from our sins” (1 John 1:9).  That’s the only way we can have the peace that accompanies freedom from sin. 

And when God has forgiven us, we are then able to forgive others, and to seek forgiveness from those we have wronged. Jesus taught us to forgive so that we might also be forgiven (Luke 6:37). When we forgive and seek forgiveness, we allow our memories to be healed and we demonstrate the forgiveness that we have received from God.

-Edited from Still More Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks by Wayne R

F A M I L Y

I ran into a stranger as he passed by, 

"Oh excuse me please" was my reply. 

He said, "Please excuse me too; 

I wasn't watching for you." 

We were very polite, this stranger and I. 

We went on our way and we said goodbye. 

But at home a different story is told, 

How we treat our loved ones, young and old. 

Later that day, cooking the evening meal, 

My son stood beside me very still. 

When I turned, I nearly knocked him down. 

"Move out of the way," I said with a frown. 

He walked away, his little heart broken. 

I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken. 

While I lay awake in bed, 

God's still small voice came to me and said, 

"While dealing with a stranger, common courtesy you use, 

but the family you love, you seem to abuse.. 

Go and look on the kitchen floor, 

You'll find some flowers there by the door. 

Those are the flowers he brought for you. 

He picked them himself: pink, yellow and blue. 

He stood very ! quietly not to spoil the surprise, 

you never saw the tears that filled his little eyes." 

By this time, I felt very small, 

And now my tears began to fall. 

I quietly went and knelt by his bed; 

"Wake up, little one, wake up," I said. 

"Are these the flowers you picked for me?" 

He smiled, "I found 'em, out by the tree. 

I picked 'em because they're pretty like you. 

I knew you'd like 'em, especially the blue." 

I said, "Son, ! I'm very sorry for the way I acted today; 

I shouldn't have yelled at you that way." 

He said, "Oh, Mom, that's okay. 

I love you anyway." 

I said, "Son, I love you too, 

and I do like the flowers, especially the blue." 

FAMILY Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family we left behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives. 

And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than into our own family, an unwise investment indeed, don't you think? 

So what is behind the story? 

The smell of rain

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. Still groggy from surgery, her husband David held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news.

That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency cesarean to deliver the couple's new daughter, Danae Lu Blessing.

At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound and nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. "I don't think she's going to make it," he said, as kindly as he could. "There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one."

Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Danae would likely face if she survived. She would never walk; she would never talk; she would probably be blind; she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation; and on and on.

"No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away.

Through the dark hours of morning as Danae held onto life by the thinnest thread. Diana slipped in and out of drugged sleep, growing more and more determined that their tiny daughter would live and live to be a healthy, happy young girl. But David, fully awake and listening to additional dire details of their daughter's chances of ever leaving the hospital alive, much less healthy, knew he must confront his wife with the inevitable.

"David walked in and said that we needed to talk about making funeral arrangements," Diana remembers, "I felt so bad for him because he was doing everything, trying to include me in what was going on, but I just wouldn't listen, I couldn't listen.

I said, "No, that is not going to happen, no way! I don't care what the doctors say. Danae is not going to die! One day she will be just fine, and she will be coming home with us!"

As if willed to live by Diana's determination, Danae clung to life hour after hour, with the help of every medical machine and marvel her miniature body could endure but as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Danae's underdeveloped nervous system was essentially "raw", the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort - so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love. All they could do, as Danae struggled alone beneath the ultra-violet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl. There was never a moment when Danae suddenly grew stronger. But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there.

At last, when Danae turned two months old, her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time. And two months later though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero.

Danae went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted. Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She shows no signs, whatsoever, of any mental or physical impairments. Simply, she is everything a little girl can be and more but that happy ending is far from the end of her story.

One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Danae was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ball park where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing. As always, Danae was chattering non-stop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent.

Hugging her arms across her chest, Danae asked, "Do you smell that?"

Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, "Yes, it smells like rain."

Danae closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?"

Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet, it smells like rain."

Still caught in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, "No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest."

Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Danae then happily hopped down to play with the other children.

Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along.

During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Danae on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.

-- Author Unknown

The Buzzard, The Bat & The Bumblebee

The Buzzard:

If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8 feet and is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of 10 to 12 feet. Without space to run, as is its habit, it will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top.

The Bat:

The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkable nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.

The Bumblebee:

A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.

People:

In many ways, we are like the buzzard, the bat, and the bumblebee. We struggle about with all our problems and frustrations, never realizing that all we have to do is look up! That's the answer, the escape route and the solution to any problem! Just look up!

Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, but faith looks up!

Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, and trust in our Creator who loves us.

-- Author Unknown 

The Perfect Mistake

My Mother's father worked as a carpenter. On this particular day, he was building some crates for the clothes his church was sending to orphanages in China. On his way home, he reached into his shirt pocket to find his glasses, but they were gone. When he mentally replayed his earlier actions, he realized what had happened; the glasses had slipped out of his pocket unnoticed and fallen into one of the crates, which he had nailed shut. His brand new glasses were heading for China!

The Great Depression was at it's height and Grandpa had six children. He had spent $20 for those glasses that very morning. He was upset by the thought of having to buy another pair. "It's not fair," he told God as he drove home in frustration. "I've been very faithful in giving of my time and money to your work, and now this."

Months later, the director of the orphanage was on furlough in the United States. He wanted to visit all the churches that supported him in China, so he came to speak one Sunday at my grandfather's small church in Chicago. The missionary began by thanking the people for their faithfulness in supporting the orphanage. "But most of all," he said, "I must thank you for the glasses you sent last year. You see, the Communists had just swept through the orphanage, destroying everything, including my glasses. I was desperate. Even if I had the money, there was simply no way of replacing those glasses. Along with not being able to see well, I experienced headaches every day, so my coworkers and I were much in prayer about this. Then your crates arrived. When my staff removed the covers, they found a pair of glasses lying on top.

The missionary paused long enough to let his words sink in. Then, still gripped with the wonder of it all, he continued: "Folks, when I tried on the glasses, it was as though they had been custom made just for me! I want to thank you for being a part of that."

The people listened, happy for the miraculous glasses. But the missionary surely must have confused their church with another, they thought. There were no glasses on their list of items to be sent overseas. But sitting quietly in the back, with tears streaming down his face, an ordinary carpenter realized the Master Carpenter had used him in an extraordinary way.

There are times we want to blame God instead of thanking him! Perhaps it is something we ought to try more often, "Thank you God for not allowing my car to start this morning." He may have been saving your life from a car accident. "Lord Jesus, thank you for letting me lose my glasses; I'm sure they'll be put to good use or there is a lesson to be learned."

-- Author Unknown

I MAY NEVER SEE TOMORROW

I may never see tomorrow 

There's no written guarantee 

And things that happened yesterday 

Belong to history.

I cannot predict the future 

I cannot change the past 

I have just the present moment 

I must treat it as my last.

I must use the moment wisely 

For it soon will pass away 

And be lost to me forever 

As part of yesterday.

I must exercise compassion 

Help the fallen to their feet 

Be a friend unto the friendless 

Make an empty life complete.

The unkind things I do today 

May never be undone. 

Any friendships that I fail to win 

May nevermore be won.

I may not have another chance 

On bended knee to pray, 

And I thank God with humble heart 

For giving me this day.

-- Author Unknown