Inspiration Shared By Lady Braids

Inspiration On 08/04/11

I got to meet a wonderful person the other day. I had stopped to
buy a local newspaper from a machine when I saw a middle-aged
lady already there. She had a handful of quarters and was slowly
buying paper after paper gently closing the machine after each
purchase. She smiled at me and explained that her daughter's
picture was in the paper. She was getting copies for all the
members of her extended family.

When she turned to leave I noticed a hole in her shoe and
realized that the rest of her clothes had also seen better days.
She climbed into her rusty, 20 year old pick-up truck and after
30 seconds of trying finally got it started. She smiled at me
again and waved as she drove off. It occurred to me as she
disappeared in the distance that she had never once thought
of taking the extra papers she needed while only paying for
one. It was then that I realized I had just met one of the
richest people in the world.

I only wish that everyone in this world had this lady's wisdom
and wealth. She was rich beyond measure in all the important
things in life. She was rich in honesty, integrity, goodness,
kindness, cheerfulness, joy, and love. She was rich in family
and in friends. She was rich most of all in oneness with God.
It didn't matter if her truck was old, her clothes were worn,
and her dollars were few. She was rich in her heart and soul,
and she possessed within her the wealth of an entire Kingdom:
the Kingdom of Heaven.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

 -- C 2006 Josephson Institute of Ethics

 

 

 

Inspiration On 07/01/11

A few years ago a fellow I'll call Bob wrote me to explain, having
just lost his bride of 42 years, how profoundly he was helped by
grand and spontaneous acts of kindness of strangers.

In one case, he said, he was at Kinko's to make copies of the
notes of love and support he had received, when he was overcome
with emotion. After he began to cry, a young woman seeing his
pain walked over and without a word just hugged him until he
regained control.

Weeks later he was at a restaurant alone and again began to
cry when he thought about his wife. A waitress sat beside him
and held his hand. As long as there are people like that in the
world, Bob concluded, there is still hope.

The great musician Pablo Casals said, "Each person has inside
a basic decency and goodness. If he acts on it and listens to it,
he is giving a great deal of what the world needs most. It is
not complicated, but it takes courage. It takes courage for a
person to listen to his own goodness and act upon it."

The poet William Wordsworth put it another way, declaring
that the best portion of a good person's life is the "little,
nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love." And
the novelist Henry James said, "Three things in human life
are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be
kind. And the third is to be kind."

Think how much better the world would be and how much
more gratifying your own life would be if every day each
of us set out to lighten the life or brighten the day of
another with simple kindness?

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

 

 

Inspiration On 06/20/11

 

Love covers a multitude of sins.  1 Peter 4:8, NASB

Have you ever heard anyone gossip about someone you know? . . .
What do you have to say?

 Here is what love says: Love says nothing. Love stays silent.
“Love covers a multitude of sins.” Love doesn’t expose. It
doesn’t gossip. If love says anything, love speaks words of
defense. Words of kindness. Words of protection.

 --  Max Lucado: What Love Says

 

 

Inspiration On 06/09/11

There are no headlines
for everyday heroes
there is no tickertape
no standing ovation

sometimes it's all they can do
to set their feet on the floor
in the morning

they go through their days
the best they know how

no rainbow need arch
through the sky
to inspire them
they have a special courage
shining deep inside

they go through their days
the best they know how

 -- Ted Hibbard

Inspiration On 05/27/11

There once was a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each
year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon. 

One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned
something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter
discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.

"How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your
neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours
each year?" the reporter asked.

"Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up
pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If
my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily
degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I
must help my neighbors grow good corn."

He is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn
cannot improve unless his neighbor's corn also improves.

So it is with our lives. Those who choose to live in peace must
help their neighbors to live in peace. Those who choose to live
well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is
measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be
happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of
each is bound up with the welfare of all.

The lesson for each of us is this: if we are to grow good corn,
we must help our neighbors grow good corn.

 -- Author Unknown

Inspiration On 05/18/11

You will never be sorry...

...for thinking before acting....for hearing before judging.

...for forgiving your enemies....for being candid and frank.

...for helping a fallen brother....for being honest in business.

...for thinking before speaking....for being loyal to your church.

...for standing by your principles....for closing your ears to gossip.

...for bridling a slanderous tongue....for harboring pure thoughts.

...for sympathizing with the afflicted....for being courteous and kind to all.

 -- Author Unknown

 

Inspiration On 05/05/11

One ship drives east and another drives west,
While the self-same breezes blow;
It's the set of the sails and not the gales,
That bids them where to go.

Like the winds of the seas are the ways of the fates,
As we voyage through life;
It's the set of the soul that decides the goal,
And not the storms or the strife.

 -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Inspiration On 04/20/11

A young nurse was assisting a surgeon for the first time. As he was
completing the operation, she told him he had used 12 sponges, but she
could account for only 11.

The doctor curtly replied that he had removed them all from inside the
patient. The nurse insisted that one was missing, but the doctor
declared he would proceed with sewing up the incision.

The nurse, her eyes blazing, said, "You can't do that! Think of the
patient!"

The doctor smiled and, lifting his foot, showed the nurse the twelfth
sponge, which he had deliberately dropped on the floor. "You'll do
fine!" he said. He had been testing her.

Pray for strength to stand up for your convictions.

-- Our Daily Bread, September 30, 2003

Inspiration On 04/19/11

One young man acquired a job in a grocery store. On the first day of
work, the manager handed him a broom and said, "I want you to sweep
the floor."

Stunned, the new employee said, "But I'm a college graduate!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," replied the boss, "I didn't know. Here then, give me
the broom and I'll show you how."

He wouldn't stoop that low! He had risen above sweeping. But one of
life's peculiar lessons is that in occasionally lowering ourselves we
find true contentment. We sometimes believe that if we can only rise
to a particular standard of living, or if we can rise above a certain
income level, or as­cend to a certain educational level that we will
be happy. But we are never all that happy until we learn the values of
simplicity and service. It's a matter also of lower­ing ourselves --
learning how to stoop!

It is as if life's gifts are all on shelves, one above the other. But
the greatest gifts are on the lowest shelves, one beneath the other.
So it is by stooping lower, always going down, that we get the best
gifts!

 -- Steve Goodier

Inspiration On 04/18/11

 

There were four clergymen who were discussing the merits of the various
translations of the Bible. One liked the King James Version because of
its poetically beautiful English.

Another liked the American Revised Version best because it is more
literal and came nearer to the original Hebrew and Greek.

Still another liked New International Version because of its up-to-date
vocabulary.

The fourth minister was silent. when asked to express his opinion, he
finally replied, "I like my mother's translation best."

The other three expressed surprise. They did not know that his mother
had translated the Bible.

But he assured them, "She translated it into life, every day of her
life, and it was the most convincing translation I ever saw."

-- Author Unknown