A Fateful Meeting

A little boy wanted to meet God.

He knew it was a long trip to where God lived, so he packed his suitcase with Twinkies and a six-pack of root beer and he started his journey.

When he had gone about three blocks, he met an old woman.

She was sitting in the park just staring at some pigeons.

The boy sat down next to her and opened his suitcase.

He was about to take a drink from his root beer when he noticed that the old lady looked hungry, so he offered her a Twinkie .

She gratefully accepted it and smiled at him. Her smile was so pretty that the boy wanted to see it again, so he offered her a root beer. Again, she smiled at him. The boy was delighted!

They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling, but they never said a word. As it grew dark, the boy realized how tired he was and he got up to leave,

but before he had gone more than a few steps, he turned around, ran back to the old woman, and gave her a hug. She gave him her biggest smile ever.

When the boy opened the door to his own house a short time later,

his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face. She asked him, "What did you do today that made you look so happy ?"

He replied, "I had lunch with God." But before his mother could respond, he added, "You know what? She's got the most beautiful smile I've ever seen!"

Meanwhile, the old woman, also radiant with joy, returned to her home.

Her son was stunned by the look of peace on her face and asked, "Mother, what did you do today that made you so happy ?" She replied, "I ate Twinkies in the park with God ."

However, before her son responded, she added, "You know, he's much younger than I expected." Too often we underestimate the power of a touch,! ! a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. Remember,

we don't know what God will look like. People come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Embrace all equally!

-Author Unknown-

One from 1885

It was an early Easter. Sledding was only just over; snow still lay in the yards; and water ran in streams down the Russian village street. Two little girls happened to meet in a lane between two homes, where the dirty water had formed a large puddle after running through the farm-yards.

One girl was very small, the other a little bigger. Their mothers had dressed them both in new Easter dresses. The little one wore a blue frock and the other a yellow print, and both had red kerchiefs on their heads.

They had just come from church when they met, and first they showed each other their finery, and then they began to play. Soon their playing took them to splash about in the water, and the smaller one was going to step into the puddle, shoes and all, when the elder stopped her saying:

"Don't go in so, Malásha," said she, "your mother will scold you. I will take off my shoes and stockings, and you take off yours."

They did so, and then, picking up their skirts, began walking towards each other through the puddle.

"Mind, Malásha, don't splash. Walk carefully!"

She had hardly said this, when Malásha stomped down her foot so that the water splashed right on to Akoúlya's dress. The frock was splashed, and so were Akoúlya's eyes and nose.

When she saw the muddy water on her frock, she was angry and ran after Malásha to strike her. Malásha was frightened, and seeing that she had got herself into big trouble, she scrambled out of the puddle, and prepared to run home.

Just then Akoúlya's mother happened to be passing, and seeing that her daughter's skirt and sleeves were dirty, she said:

"You naughty, dirty girl, what have you been doing?"

"Malásha did it on purpose," replied the girl.

At this Akoúlya's mother seized Malásha, and struck her lightly on the back of her neck. Malásha began to cry so that she could be heard all down the street. Her mother came out.

"What did you hit my girl for?" said she; and began scolding her neighbour. One word led to another and they had an angry quarrel.

The men came out and a crowd collected in the street, every one shouting and no one listening. They all went on quarrelling, till one gave another a push, and the affair had very nearly come to blows, when Akoúlya's old grandmother, stepping in among them, tried to calm them.

"What are you thinking of, friends? Is it right to behave so? On an Easter Sunday like this, too! It is a time for rejoicing, and not for such folly as this."

They would not listen to the old woman and nearly brushed her off her feet. And she would not have been able to quiet the crowd, if it had not been for Akoúlya and Malásha themselves.

While the women were arguing with each other, Akoúlya had wiped the mud off her frock, and gone back to the puddle. She took a stone and began scraping away the earth in front of the puddle to make a channel through which the water could run out into the street.

Presently Malásha joined her, and with a chip of wood helped her dig the channel. Just as the men were beginning to quarrel, the water from the little girls' channel ran streaming into the street towards the very place where the old woman was trying to pacify the men. The girls followed it; one running each side of the little stream.

"Catch it, Malásha! Catch it!" shouted Akoúlya; while Malásha could not speak for laughing. Highly delighted, and watching the wooden chip float along on their stream, the little girls ran straight into the group of men. The old woman, seeing them, said to the men:

"Are you men not ashamed of yourselves? To go fighting on account of these young girls, when they themselves have forgotten all about it, and are playing happily together. Dear little souls! They are wiser than you!"

The men looked at the little girls, and were ashamed, and, laughing at themselves, went back each to his own home.

"Unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven."

Written by Leo Tolstoy in 1885

Lessons In Love

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!! May you and your loved ones celebrate love today and EVERYDAY of your lives. Here's another one for your reading pleasure...Enjoy..

When love pours on you

like a refreshing summer shower,

Rejoice!

Open your arms and embrace it!

Let it invade your senses.

Soak your memory to remember it,

if you ever feel a drought in your heart.

If the pain of the cracks

in your heart tear you up,

Relax!

It's temporary.

All you need

to let love flow again

is the courage to take a chance.

There's a story about a well in the middle of nowhere.

When travelers reach it, they are usually very thirsty. When they pull the cord inside the well, the bucket carries a note and a bottle of water. The note is as follows:

"Use all the water in this bottle to prime the well. Don't drink any of it, because you will need all of it to get the water flowing. Pour it down the well and pump!

If you drink the water from this bottle, your thirst may be quenched for a while, but you will be thirsty again, and this well will be useless for you and everyone else who comes this way.

But if you use the water to prime the well, you will have an abundance of water, for now and to carry on your voyage.

Remember to leave a full bottle of water and this note for the next traveler."

What would you do? Would you take a chance?

Think of giving love like priming the well.

Take a chance, give your full measure. You can't expect love if you don't give it.

Love someone. Start with yourself.

You are "unique in all the world". Nobody else is exactly like you, not even your twin, if you have one. That should be enough for you to realize how valuable you are.

Consider the story of "The Little Prince"

(by Antoine de Saint Exupéry).

The Little Prince lived on his planet where he had just one rose, who told him that she was unique in all the universe.

When the Little Prince came to earth and passed by a rose garden, he was shocked.

"And he was overcome with sadness. His flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in all the universe. And here were five thousand of them, all alike, in one single garden!"

But then, The Little Prince met the Fox, who told him the secret of life:

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

So The Little Prince returned to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made a friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you -- the rose that belongs to me.

But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of your other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is MY rose."

Like the rose, you and I are "unique in all the world". But we let all the other things get in the way of seeing what is really important in life.

The job, the meetings, the deals, the social status and opinions, the feeling that we are worth what appears on the outside...all of these things are what make us forget how "unique" we are, and how unique our loved ones are. We're so caught up in the rat race that we become rats. We take people and things for granted until sometimes it's too late.

When's the last time you stopped to smell the roses?

When's the last time you told someone you love how important they are to you?

It's HOW we live and love that makes us "unique in all the world".

As the sayings go, "Nobody says 'I wish I had spent more time at the office' on their death bed, and 'a security truck full of money following your hearse won't get you into heaven'."

Find your heaven here, now. Love. Be loved. It's all that really matters.

Put love first, and everything else will fall into place.

God bless you and Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Knowledge - Great and Small

Great knowledge is broad and encompassing
Small knowledge is detailed and meticulous
Great talk is powerful and forceful
Small talk is endless and argumentative

In their sleeping hours their spirits are restless
In their waking hours their bodies are agitated
When they deal with others they get entangled
The entire day they plot and scheme

Some speak deliberately
Some set traps with words
Some are secretive
Small fears make them apprehensive
Great fears make them panic

When they speak, their words are like arrows shot out
Seeking others' weak spots to cause damage
When they keep quiet, it is as if they have sworn an oath
Looking for opportunities to achieve victory

When they fail, it is like Autumn or Winter
We can say that they decline day after day
When they are trapped in this situation
They cannot return to their true nature
When they are obstructed as if bound
We can say that they wither and shrivel

The heart that is nearing death
Cannot regain life and vitality
Joy, anger, sadness, happiness
Worry, regret, change, horror
Impetuous, undisciplined, unruly, pretentious
Like sound coming out of holes,
Or fungus growing out of humidity
Day and night they clash before us
Yet they do not know the root cause

Enough! Enough!

Once they understand this,
Will they then comprehend the principle of life?
Without it, I cannot exist
Without me, there is no one to appreciate it
Therefore I am close to it
But I do not know what governs it
There must be a supreme ruler
But I cannot discern any trace of it
I can believe it exists from its actions
But I cannot see its shape
It has existence, but no physical form

--- Chuang Tzu ---

The Story of Pam

More than 24 years ago, Pam and her husband Bob were serving as missionaries to the Philippines and praying for a fifth child.

Pam contracted amoebic dysentery and went into a coma. She was treated with strong antibiotics before they discovered that she was pregnant. Doctors urged her to abort the baby for her own safety and told her that the medicines had caused irreversible damage to her baby.

She refused with her hope that her son would be born without the devastating disabilities the physicians predicted.

While pregnant, Pam nearly lost their baby four times but refused to consider abortion. She recalled making a pledge to God with her husband: If you will give us a son, we'll name him Timothy and we'll make him a preacher.

Pam ultimately spent the last two months of her pregnancy in bed and eventually gave birth to a healthy baby boy August 14, 1987. Pam's youngest son is indeed a preacher. He preaches in prisons, makes hospital visits, and serves with his father's ministry in the Philippines . He also plays football.

Pam's son is Tim Tebow.

In 2007 the University of Florida 's star quarterback became the first sophomore in history to win college football's highest award, the Heisman Trophy. His current role as quarterback of the Denver Broncos has provided an incredible platform for his witness.

Tim's notoriety and the family's inspiring story have given Pam numerous opportunities to speak on behalf of women's centers across the country. Pam Tebow believes that every little baby you save matters. I pray her tribe will increase!

~ Author Unknown ~