His Mysterious Ways

For years my daughter, Candi, and I had talked about canoeing the Yellow River in the Florida panhandle. Finally, during one of her college breaks, we decided to go for it.
We were only half an hour into our trip when the sky turned dark and thunder rumbled in the distance. The current picked up, and I grew uneasy about the rising water.

The rain came down quickly in wind-whipped sheets and the river tossed us wildly over submerged logs and rocks. "We've got to dock!" I shouted. Candi bailed water furiously while I searched for a clearing along the dark, tree-lined bank.

The rain was so heavy I couldn't see more than a few feet ahead. Every time I'd spot a place to come ashore, we were already past it.

Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck the water directly in front of us. We 've got to get off this river now! Just then I saw a faint glow in the distance. A house?

I steered the canoe toward the glow. It was a porch light. And there in front of the house was a cleared section of the riverbank. By the time we got the canoe up on dry land, the porchlight was off.

"Lucky it was on when we needed it," I said to Candi. A woman standing on the porch ushered us inside the house.

"Thank you," I said to her as we dried ourselves off. "I don't know how we'd have made it to shore if your porch light hadn't been on."

But it couldn't have been, " she said. "The power's been out all day."
--Robert Kramer

The Wet Pants

There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet.

He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It's never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it..

When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives.

The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, "Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I'm dead meat."

He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.

As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy's lap.

The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself,

"Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!"

Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out.

All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else - Susie.

She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. "You've done enough, you klutz!"

Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

Susie whispers back, "I wet my pants once too."

May God help us see the opportunities that are always around us to do good.

Each and everyone one of us are going through tough times right now, but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that only He can.

********

Keep the faith.

"When God Answers your Prayer He is increasing your Faith,
When He delays, He is increasing your Patience,
When He Don't Give U Anything, He has Something BETTER"

Reasons, Seasons, Lifetime Friendships

People come into your life for a REASON, a SEASON, or a LIFETIME. When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.

When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it. It is real. But, only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person/people (any way); and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.

Thank you for being a part of my life.

The Fear

"I am fear. I am the menace that lurks in the path of life, never visible to the eye but sharply felt in the heart. I am the father of despair, the brother of procrastination, the enemy of progress, the tool of tyranny. Born of ignorance and nursed on misguided thought, I have darkened more hopes, stifled more ambitions, shattered more ideals and prevented more accomplishments than history could ever record.

"Like the changing chameleon, I assume many disguises. I masquerade as caution. I am sometimes known as doubt or worry. But whatever I'm called, am still fear, the obstacle of achievement.

"I know no master but one. It's name is understanding. I have no power but what the human mind gives me, and I vanish completely when the light of understanding reveals the facts as they really are, for I am really nothing.

"You see, if you have the courage to acknowledge your fears, you will be taking the first step toward controlling them instead of them controlling you. And if you take the next step toward understanding, you will be able to move past them to compassion,... perhaps even to love."

Permission to Cry

Alone in the wheel of light at the dining room table, surrounded by an otherwise darkened house, I sat in tears. Finally, I'd succeeded in getting both kids to bed. A relatively new single parent, I had to be both Mommy and Daddy to my two little children. I got them both washed, accompanied by shrieks of delight, crazy running around, laughing and throwing things. More or less calmed down, they lay in their beds as I gave each the prescribed five minutes of back rubs. Then I took up my guitar and began the nighttime ritual of folk songs, ending with "All the Pretty Little Horses," both kids' favorite. I sang it over and over, gradually reducing the tempo and the volume until they seemed fully engaged in sleep.

A recently divorced man with full custody of his children, I was determined to give them as normal and stable a home life as possible. I put on a happy face for them. I kept their activities as close to how they had always been as I could. This nightly ritual was just as it had always been with the exception that their mother was now missing.

There, I had done it again; another night successfully concluded. I had risen slowly, gingerly, trying to avoid making even the least sound which might start them up again, asking for more songs and more stories. I tiptoed out of their room, closed the door part way, and went downstairs.

Sitting at the dining room table, I slumped in my chair, aware that this was the first time since I came home from work that I'd been able to just sit down. I had cooked and served and encouraged two little ones to eat. I had done the dishes while responding to their many requests for attention. I helped my oldest with her second grade homework and appreciated my youngest's drawings and oohed over his elaborate construction of Lego blocks. The bath, the stories, the backrubs, the singing and now, at long last, a brief moment for myself. The silence was a relief, for the moment.

Then it all crowded in on me: the fatigue, the weight of the responsibility, the worry about bills I wasn't sure I could pay that month. The endless details of running a house. Only a short time before, I'd been married and had a partner to share these chores, these bills, these worries.

And loneliness. I felt as though I were at the bottom of a great sea of loneliness. It all came together and I was at once lost, overwhelmed. Unexpected, convulsive sobs overtook me. I sat there, silently sobbing.

Just then, a pair of little arms went around my middle and a little face peered up at me. I looked down into my five-year-old son's sympathetic face. I was embarrassed to be seen crying by my son. "I'm sorry, Ethan, I didn't know you were still awake. "I don't know why it is, but so many people apologize when they cry and I was no exception. "I didn't mean to cry. I'm sorry. I'm just a little sad tonight." "It's okay, Daddy. It's okay to cry, you're just a person."

I can't express how happy he made me, this little boy, who in the wisdom of innocence, gave me permission to cry. He seemed to be saying that I didn't have to always be strong, that it was occasionally possible to allow myself to feel weak and let out my feelings.

He crept into my lap and we hugged and talked for a while, and I took him back up to his bed and tucked him in. Somehow, it was possible for me to get to sleep that night, too. Thank you, my son.

-Hanoch McCarty

Be Patient

A man came out of his home to admire his new truck.
To his puzzlement, his three-year-old son was happily hammering dents into the shiny paint of the truck.

The man ran to his son, knocked him away, and hammered the little boy’s hands into pulp as punishment.

When the father calmed down, he rushed his son to the hospital. Although the doctor tried desperately to save the crushed bones, he finally had to amputate fingers from boy’s both hands.

When the boy woke up from the surgery and saw his bandaged stubs, he innocently said, "Daddy, I’m sorry about your truck.” Then he asked, “But when are my fingers going to grow back?"

The father went home and committed suicide.
Think about this story the next time someone steps on your feet or you wish to take revenge. Think first before you lose your patience with someone u love. Trucks can be repaired. Broken bones and hurt feelings often can’t.

Too often we fail to recognize the difference between the person and the performance. We forget that forgiveness is greater than revenge.

Moral of the Story:
People make mistakes. We are allowed to make mistakes. But the actions we take while in a rage will haunt us forever. Pause and ponder. Think before you act. Be patient. Forgive and forget. Love one and all.

The Ant and The Dove

One hot day, an ant was searching for some water. After walking around for some time, she came to a spring.

To reach the spring, she had to climb up a blade of grass. While making her way up, she slipped and fell into the water. She could have drowned if a dove up a nearby tree had not seen her. Seeing that the ant was in trouble, the dove quickly plucked off a leaf and dropped it into the water near the struggling ant. The ant moved towards the leaf and climbed up there. Soon it carried her safely to dry ground.

Just at that time, a hunter nearby was throwing out his net towards the dove, hoping to trap it.

Guessing what he was about to do, the ant quickly bit him on the heel. Feeling the pain, the hunter dropped his net. The dove was quick to fly away to safety.

Moral of the Story:
One good turn deserves another.

A Matter of Trust

During a flight between New York and Chicago, the captain made this announcement over the plane's intercom: "Our number four engine has just been shut off because of mechanical trouble.

There is nothing to worry about, however, we can still finish the flight with just three engines, and besides, you will be reassured to know that we have four bishops on board."

An 86-year-old woman called the flight attendant and said, "Would you please tell the captain that I would rather have four engines and three bishops!" Experience taught her to place her trust in the aircraft rather than passengers -- regardless how religious they may seem!

Experience, likewise, has taught us to be careful of what and whom we trust. We learn to be careful trusting risky investments, offers to make easy money, people we don't know, and anything that seems "too good to be true." We are sometimes even afraid to trust ourselves!

Helen Keller learned a great deal about trust in her life as one who was both sightless and deaf. She learned to trust people, upon whom she was often dependent. She learned to trust herself and lived a highly productive life in spite of her handicapping conditions. As a noted writer and thinker, she taught us that trust is vital to any happy life.

Helen Keller believed there are four great things to learn in life. They are:

1. To think clearly without hurry or confusion;
2. To love everyone sincerely;
3. To act in everything with the highest motives; and
4. To trust God unhesitatingly.

Moral of the Story:
Trust. It is a small word which can make a big difference.