STARFISH

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a figure in the distance. 

As he got closer he realized the figure was that of a boy picking something up and gently

 throwing it into the ocean.

Approaching the boy, he asked, "What are you doing?"

The youth replied, "Throwing starfish in the ocean. The sun is up and the tide is going out. 

If don't throw them in, they will die."

"Son," the man said, "Don't you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds

 of starfish? You can't possibly make a difference!"

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it into

the surf.

Then smiling at the man, he said, "I MADE A DIFFERENCE FOR THAT 

ONE!"

The Traffic Ticket

 

Jack took a long look at his speedometer before slowing down: 73 in a 55 mph zone. Fourth time in as many months. How could a guy get caught so often?

When his car had slowed to 10 miles an hour, Jack pulled over, but only partially. Let the cop worry about the potential traffic hazard. Maybe some other car will tweak his backside with a mirror.


The cop was stepping out of his car, the big pad in hand. Bob? Bob from Church?

Jack sunk farther into his trench coat. This was worse than the coming ticket. A Christian cop catching a guy from his own church. A guy who happened to be a little eager to get home after a long day at the office.

Jumping out of the car, he approached a man he saw every Sunday, a man he'd never seen in uniform. "Hi, Bob. Fancy meeting you like this." "Hello, Jack." No smile. "Guess you caught me red-handed in a rush to see my wife and kids." "Yeah, I guess so."

Bob seemed uncertain. Good. "I've seen some long days at the office lately. I'm afraid I bent the rules a bit -- just this once."


Jack toed at a pebble on the pavement. "Diane said something about roast beef and potatoes tonight. Know what I mean?"

"I know what you mean. I also know that you have a reputation in the precinct."

Ouch. This was not going in the right direction. Time to change tactics.

"What'd you clock me at?"

"Seventy. Would you sit back in your car please?"



"Now wait a minute here, Bob. I checked as soon as I saw you. I was barely nudging 65." The lie seemed to come easier with every ticket.

"Please, Jack, in the car."

Flustered, Jack hunched himself through the still-open door. Slamming it shut, he stared at the dashboard. He was in no rush to open the window.

The minutes ticked by. Bob scribbled away on the pad. Why hadn't he asked for a driver's license?

Whatever the reason, it would be a month of Sundays before Jack ever sat near this cop again. A tap on the door jerked his head to the left. There was Bob, a folded paper in hand. Jack rolled down the window a mere two inches, just enough room for Bob to pass him the slip.


"Thanks." Jack could not quite keep the sneer out of his voice. Bob returned to his police car without a word. Jack watched his retreat in the mirror. Jack unfolded the sheet of paper. How much was this one going to cost? Wait a minute. What was this? Some kind of joke? Certainly not a ticket. Jack began to read:
"Dear Jack, Once upon a time I had a daughter. She was six when killed by a car. You guessed it -- a speeding driver. A fine and three months in jail, and the man was free. Free to hug his daughters. All three of them. I had only one, and I'm going to have to wait until Heaven before I can ever hug her again. A thousand times I've tried to forgive that man. A thousand times I thought I had. Maybe I did, but I need to do it again. Even now. Pray for me. And be careful, Jack, my son is all I have left. Bob."

Jack turned around in time to see Bob's car pull away and head down the road. Jack watched until it disappeared. A full 15 minutes later, he too, pulled away and drove slowly home, praying for forgiveness and hugging a surprised wife and kids when he arrived.

Sand Writing

A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. In a specific point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face.

The one, who got slapped, was hurt, but without anything to say, he wrote in the sand: "TODAY, MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE".

They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who got slapped and hurt started drowning, and the other friend saved him. When he recovered from the fright, he wrote on a stone: "TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE".

The friend who saved and slapped his best friend, asked him, "Why, after I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now you write on a stone?"

The other friend, smiling, replied: "When a friend hurts us, we should write it down in the sand, where the winds of forgiveness get in charge of erasing it away, and when something great happens, we should engrave it in the stone of the memory of the heart, where no wind can erase it"

Learn to write in the sand.

P.U.S.H........................

One night, a man was sleeping in his cabin when suddenly his room was filled with the light and the Creator appeared.

The Creator told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in front of his cabin. The Creator explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might.

The man did the same, day after day. For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore, and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain...

Since the man was showing signs of discouragement, the Adversary decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the man's weary mind:

"You have been pushing against that rock for a long time, and it hasn't budged. Why kill yourself over this? You can never move it," thus, giving the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure. These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man. "Why kill myself over this?" he thought. "I'll just put in my time, giving just the minimum effort; and that will be good enough." And that is what he planned to do, until one day he decided to make it a matter of prayer and take his troubled thoughts to the Creator. "Creator," he said, "I have labored long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by half a millimeter. What is wrong? Why am I failing?"

The Creator responded compassionately, "My friend, when I asked you to serve me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all your strength, which you have done. Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. Your task was to push." "Now you come to me with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed. But is that really so?
Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled, your back is sinewy and brown, your hands are callused from constant pressure, and your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition you have grown much, and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have. Yet you haven't moved the rock. But your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith in My wisdom. This you have done. My friend,  I will now move the rock."

At times, when we hear a word from the Creator, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when actually what the Creator wants is just obedience and faith in Him.... By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains, but know that it is still the Creator who moves the mountains. When everything seems to go wrong ... just P.U.S.H.! When the job gets you down ... just P.U.S.H.! When people don't react the way you think they should ... just P.U.S.H.! When your money looks gone and the bills are due ... just P.U.S.H.! When people just don't understand you...

Just PUSH! P.U.S.H - Pray Until Something Happens

Shoes

As Gandhi stepped aboard a train one day, one of his shoes slipped off and landed on the track. He was unable to retrieve it as the train was moving. To the amazement of his companions, Gandhi calmly took off his other shoe and threw it back along the track to land close to the first. Asked by a fellow passenger why he did so, Gandhi smiled. "The poor man who finds the shoes lying on the track," he replied, "will now have a pair he can use."

Spouse from God

Years ago, I asked God to give me a spouse, "You don't own because you didn't ask" God said. Not only I asked for a spouse but also explained what kind of spouse I wanted. I want a nice, tender, forgiving, passionate, honest, peaceful, generous, understanding, pleasant, warm, intelligent, humorous, attentive, compassionate and truthful. I even mentioned the physical characteristics I dreamt about.

As time went by I added the required list of my wanted spouse. One night, in my prayer, God talked to my heart: "My servant, I cannot give you what you want."

I asked, "Why God?" and God said "Because I am God and I am fair. God is the truth and all I do are true and right."

I asked "God, I don't understand why I cannot have what I ask from you?"

God answered, "I will explain. It is not fair and right for Me to fulfill your demand because I cannot give something that is not your ownself. It is not fair to give someone who is full of love to you if sometimes you are still hostile, or to give you someone generous but sometimes you can be cruel, or someone forgiving; however, you still hide revenge, someone sensitive;however, you are very insensitive...."

He then said to me: "It is better for Me to give you someone who I know could grow to have all qualities you are searching rather than to make you waste your time to find someone who already have the qualities you want. Your spouse would be bone from your bone and flesh from your flesh and you will see yourself in her and both of you will be one. Marriage is like a school. It is a life-long span education. It is where you and your partner make adjustment and aim not merely to please each other,but to be better human beings and to make a solid teamwork. I do not give you a perfect partner, because you are not perfect either. I give you a partner with whom you would grow together"

This is for all: the recently married, the ones who have been married, the soon to get married,and the ones who are still looking.

The Butterfly

A man found a cocoon for a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he
sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force
its body through the little hole.

Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had
gotten as far as it could and could go no farther. Then the man decided to
help the butterfly.

He took a pair of scissors and snipped the remaining bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily.

Something was strange. The butterfly had a swollen body and shriveled
wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected at any
moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body,
which would contract in time.

Neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life
crawling around with a swollen body and deformed wings. It was never able
to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand, was that the
restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get
through the small opening of the cocoon are God's way of forcing fluid
from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready
for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life.

If God allowed us to go through all our life without any obstacles, that
would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.

Not only that, we could never fly.

Just like a butterfly must struggle to get released from the cocoon and then fly, we also must struggle to become who we are to be. Sometimes we want God to take the struggle out of our lives and remove the obstacles from our ways. But just like the man made the butterfly crippled, we also might become crippled in our lives. God does not remove all the obstacles and difficulties from our lives. He promises to be with us in times of difficulties and use them to strengthen us, make us better and stronger.