Sunday, August 17, 2008

A Glass Of Milk

As i opened up my inbox, i saw this:

A Glass Of Milk
One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry.
He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door.

Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it so slowly, and then asked, How much do I owe you?'

You don't owe me anything,' she replied. 'Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness.'

He said ... 'Then I thank you from my heart.'

As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strong also. He had been ready to give up and quit.

Many year's later that same young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease.

Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes.

Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room.

Dressed in his doctor's gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once.

He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to her case.

After a long struggle, the battle was won.

Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. She read these words ...

'Paid in full with one glass of milk'

(Signed) Dr. Howard Kelly.

Tears of joy flooded her eyes as her happy heart prayed: 'Thank You,
God, that Your love has spread broad through human hearts and hands.'

There's a saying which goes something like this: Bread cast on the waters comes back to you. The good deed you do today may benefit you or someone you love at the least expected time. If you never see the deed again at least you will have made the world a better place - And, after all, isn't that what life is all about?

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Friday, July 25, 2008

Too Busy For A Friend

I received this email from both, Bhavna & JieYing. And thought i'd share. It's such an amazing story, here is how it goes:

Too Busy for a Friend...

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.
Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers. That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual. On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. 'Really?' she heard whispered. 'I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!' and, 'I didn't know others liked me so much,' were most of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on. Several years later, one of the students was killed in VietNam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature. The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin. As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. 'Were you Mark's math teacher?' he asked. She nodded: 'yes.' Then he said: 'Mark talked about you a lot.' After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher. 'We want to show you something,' his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket 'They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.' Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him.

'Thank you so much for doing that,' Mark's mother said. 'As you can see, Mark treasured it.' All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, 'I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home.' Chuck's wife said, 'Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album.' 'I have mine too,' Marilyn said. 'It's in my diary'.Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. 'I carry this with me at all times,' Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: 'I think we all saved our lists' That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again. The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be.

So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late.

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Thursday, June 26, 2008

What Is Love To You?

Love From The Father
By Dae Il Kim

There once was an old man who lived in South Korea. After the war, times were hard and life for him wasn’t easy. His occupation was that of a metal collector which was considered the lowest job possible at the time). He would search garbage can after garbage can looking for scraps of metal which he could sell to the government. He earned a measly ten dollars and spent five to buy food. He lived in a hut which he built on the mountain side and was a very lonely person and nobody cared for him. He lived a sad life for his face was severely scarred from a fire which killed his family. No one would look at him because he was so grotesquely scarred and because of this he kept very quiet and avoided people whenever he could. His main goal in life was to save enough money to fix his face so he could live a “normal” life.

Meanwhile, there was an orphan who lived in the streets every day. Both his parents left him when he was only nine. The boy was blind and suffered from severe malnutrition. Every day the boy begged for food but the people who passed by would either laugh at him or say evil things to him. In fact, some even kicked him or threw dirt in his face. Although he wished so much that he could run away, he couldn’t because he was blind. Like the old man, the boy lived a sad sad life and nobody cared about him.

One day, as the old man was walking down the street and he was trying his best to avoid people while looking for scraps of metal, he saw the broken hearted boy and felt sympathy for him. Out of his kind heart, he took the boy to his home. There he fed him, clothed him, and treated him like his own beloved son. The boy was joyful and was so eternally grateful to this person who treated him like a loving father. For the first time in his life, the boy felt loved.

Years passed and the old man and the boy were very happy together. One day the boy said to the old man, “I’m sorry for being so useless. I wish my eyes would become better so I could help you work. You must be such a beautiful and wonderful person because you took care of someone as wretched as me. Maybe one day I could see your wonderful face.”

The old man immediately became silent being too moved to say anything.

The next day he went to the hospital and asked the doctor privately how much it would cost for the surgery to heal his face. The doctor told him around a thousand dollars. He was Deeply saddened because he had saved up for ten long years and only had a little more than fifteen hundred. He then asked the doctor how much it would be to heal the young boy’s sight. The doctor said fifteen hundred dollars will do. Without thinking, he knew what he had to do. He would give up his life-long dream for this boy whom he loved so dearly.

The next day, he took the boy to the doctor. He didn’t want the boy to see him after the operation because of the scars on his face. Hesitantly and sadly, he went up to the young boy and said, “After you receive your sight I can’t be with you anymore, yet I shall always think of you. I want you to be happy and live a good life.”

After these words he paid the doctor and the tired man left knowing he could never truly reveal himself to the one he loved so dearly. The surgery was very successful and immediately thereafter the boy could see again. He was filled with joy and wondered why he couldn’t see the one he who he owed his life to and sacrificed so much for him.

After the boy left the hospital, he started looking for a job and soon he found one at a restaurant. He became a waiter there and worked full time earning a good amount.

Chance would have it that the next day the old man came looking for metals to collect. He started searching around the garbage can of the restaurant. While he was searching, the manager of the restaurant came out and started yelling at him and commanding him to leave because he was scaring the customers.

The boy soon came to the manager’s side side and seeing the old man creating such a commotion threatened him even more than the manager. The boy called the old man some foul names, kicked him a few times, and even threw dirt in his face. So quickly had he forgotten that he was picked on by other people in the same way years ago. Slowly….very slowly, the metal collector got up and began limping away aching from the pain that the boy had inflicted on him. As he was leaving he looked at the boy and he smiled a warm smile at the boy (although it was not well received) and left not wanting the boy to see him cry his happy tears.

Later on the day at the restaurant the manager said to the boy, “what an ugly man.”

The boy’s reply was, “I know, I hope I never see him again.”

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This is a story written by Dae Kim. Don't you think that we take things/people for granted. And you'd only realise it, when we suffer. This old man saved this young boy's life, but even though he can see now, he still made his life-saver suffer, Shouldn't you be thanking God for giving you back your vision, and then treat everyone the same way. Because you once were previously like that, mocked by people, teased by people. But now, you do that to others what people did to you. Isn't that wrong?

This story testifies Jesus's love for us, just like today's devotion. He sacrifices and does so much for us and yet we don’t care for his existence. We’re like the boy and that old man who loves us so much is Jesus. Like the old man, even when we treat him so badly he still smiles at us because we are still his beloved children; he is ever faithful and is an all loving God.

Isn't God so good?

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