Stories to inspire

[FineLinen]

STORY ABOUT BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF

One doctor became the greatest surgeon in the country and became the president of the National society of surgeons. For this reason, a celebration in his honour was held. But he was sad.

His friend came up to him and said:

– You achieved something that others can’t even dream about – you became the greatest surgeon. Why are you so sad?

– The thing is that I achieved something that I didn’t even want, – the surgeon said, – I never wanted to be a surgeon and now I can’t escape from it. If I would suffer a failure then maybe I would have a chance to do something that I really love. And now I am chained to a thing that I don’t even like.

– You must be joking? – The friend exclaimed, – the biggest honour for a surgeon is to become the president of a National society. Your wife is happy, your children are happy. Everyone has the highest respect for you!

– But I don’t respect myself – that’s what is wrong. I wanted to be a dancer, but my parents were against it, and I’ve listened to them. I was weak. I became a great surgeon, but I am very mediocre in the field that I wanted to dedicate my life to. That is why I am unhappy now.

 

[FineLinen]

The Boy Who Saved A Village

Once upon a time in a small mountain village, it was the custom for the villagers to strap on their knapsacks each morning. Then, during the day, each time they worried about something or felt depressed about a problem, they would pick up a small pebble and put it in their knapsack. The knapsacks were heavy and a burden to carry because the villagers never emptied them. They carried their burdens every day. It was all they knew.

One day one of the village elders walked down to the river bank bent over from his knapsack full of burdens and noticed one of the small boys from the village skipping pebbles across the water. The boy’s knapsack was empty.

“What are you doing?” the old man asked. “And why is your knapsack empty? Why aren’t you carrying your burdens like the rest of us?”

“I come down to the river bank at the end of each day,” the boy said, “and skip my pebbles across the water until my knapsack is empty. I see no reason to keep carrying them.”

The old man was stunned and so bent over from his knapsack full of burdens that he could hardly move. He had never seen anyone cast their burdens away like that.
“Would you like to try it?” the boy asked.

The old man was hesitant, yet it seemed like such a good idea. Slowly he reached into his knapsack that was large and heavy from all the burdens he had accumulated over many years. He grabbed a pebble and studied it, recalling the burden of pain that he felt when he had placed it in his knapsack. He was so bent over that it was difficult to cast the burden away and watch it skip across the water and finally disappear, but he somehow did it.

The boy smiled.

The old man smiled also. It was easier than he thought to let go of the burden.

Then he tossed another pebble, another burden, then another, and another. The boy stayed and watched. They built a fire and the old man kept throwing until his knapsack was at last empty. He felt so relieved.

The next day the old man, standing straight and tall, told the other villagers what happened and how good he felt. They could see how happy he was, how he looked and acted like a different person. They were amazed.

At the end of the day, all the villagers joined the old man and the small boy and went to the river bank and skipped their burdens across the water until their knapsacks were empty. They were amazed at how good and happy they felt. They never continued to hang onto their burdens again.

A sign was erected at the entrance to the village that said,

“IT’S HARD TO BE ON TOP OF THE WORLD WHEN YOU’RE CARRYING IT ON YOUR SHOULDERS. LET GO AND LIVE.”

 

[FineLinen]

"I have never led my life on the basis of “until it’s safe.” I do not take ridiculous risks. I wear a seatbelt whenever I’m in a car because the chances are overwhelming that in a bad accident, a seatbelt can save my life. But I get into the car, which is not 100% safe.

You are not on earth to be safe. You are on earth to lead a full life. I don’t want my epitaph to be, “He led a safe life.” …

All of life confronts you with this question: Are you going to take risks or play it safe? If you play it safe, you don’t get married. If you play it safe, you don’t have kids. There are real risks in getting married; there are real risks in having children.

If you want to lead a good and full life, you cannot keep asking, “Is it safe?” Those at college promoting “safe spaces” are afraid of life, and they want to make you afraid of life.

We’re going crazy on the safe issue. It is making police states. That’s my worry: In the name of safety, many Americans are dropping all other considerations. " - Dennis Prager

 

[FineLinen]

A professor entered his classroom with a glass of water. He raised the glass of water. everyone in the room expected the: half entry or half full” question.

Instead, to everyone’s surprise, the professor smiled and inquired: “ How heavy is this glass of water?”

The answers called out for the range from 8 Oz to 15 Oz.

“ I need to weigh it to know how much exactly it weighs. But the question, I really want you to answer is – what if I held the glass up for a minute?”, asked the professor.

“ Nothing” the students answered unanimously.

“ Your arms will start aching “ , answered one of the students.

“ But what if I hold it for an hour?” asked the professor.

“ You are right!, But what if I held it up for a whole day?”, queried the professor.

“ Your arms will feel numb, your muscles get stressed and it may even get paralyzed” ventured an another student .

“ You are right!”, exclaimed the professor. “ So what should I do to avoid the pain “ asked the professor.

“ Keep the glass down”, answered a student.

“ Exactly!” said the professor. He continued “In all the case the weight of the glass remains the same. But, longer I held it up, heavier it becomes.

The stress and worries in life are like the glass of water. If you think about them for a while, nothing happens.

Think about them for longer, they will start hurting. Think about them for even longer, you will feel stress and be paralyzed ”

It is important to think about the problems in the life. But, you should not carry the stress long enough that it begins to ache and paralyze your life.

It is important to let go of your stresses. Don’t carry your stress all day and always remember to put the glass down before you go to bed!

 

[FineLinen]

On a lighter note

Quarantine Smiles

 

[FineLinen]

 

[FineLinen]

Three Feet From Gold

During the gold rush, a man who had been mining in Colorado for several months quit his job, as he hadn’t struck gold yet and the work was becoming tiresome.

He sold his equipment to another man who resumed mining where it had been left off.

The new miner was advised by his engineer that there was gold only three feet away from where the first miner stopped digging.

The engineer was right, which means the first miner was a mere three feet away from striking gold before he quit.

The Moral:

When things start to get hard, try to persevere through the adversity. Many people give up on following their dreams because the work becomes too difficult, tedious, or tiresome–but often, you're closer to the finish line than you may think, and if you push just a little harder, you will succeed.

 

[FineLinen]

Everything Is Black & White: everything!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...ature=emb_logo

 

[FineLinen]

The Glasses

Mother’s father worked as a carpenter. On this particular day, he was building some crates for the clothes his church was sending to some orphanage in China.

On his way home, he reached into his shirt pocket to find his glasses, but they were gone. When he mentally replayed his earlier actions, he realized what happened; the glasses had slipped out of his pocket unnoticed and fallen into one of the crates, which he had nailed shut. His brand new glasses were heading for China!

The Great Depression was at it’s height and Grandpa had six children. He had spent $20 for those glasses that very morning. He was upset by the thought of having to buy another pair.

“It’s not fair,” he told God as he drove home in frustration.

“I’ve been very faithful in giving of my time and money to your work, and now this.”

Several months later, the director of the orphanage was on furlough in the United States.

He wanted to visit all the churches that supported him in China, so he came to speak one Sunday at my grandfather’s small church in Chicago. The missionary began by thanking the people for their faithfulness in supporting the orphanage.

“But most of all,” he said, "I must thank you for the glasses you sent last year.

You see, the Communists had just swept through the orphanage, destroying everything, including my glasses. I was desperate. Even if I had the money, there was simply no way of replacing those glasses.

Along with not being able to see well, I experienced headaches every day, so my coworkers and I were much in prayer about this. Then your crates arrived. When my staff removed the covers, they found a pair of glasses lying on top.

The missionary paused long enough to let his words sink in. Then, still gripped with the wonder of it all, he continued: “Folks, when I tried on the glasses, it was as though they had been custom-made just for me! I want to thank you for being a part of that.”

The people listened, happy for the miraculous glasses. But the missionary surely must have confused their church with another, they thought. There were no glasses on their list of items to be sent overseas.

But sitting quietly in the back, with tears streaming down his face, an ordinary carpenter realized the Master Carpenter had used him in an extraordinary way.

 

[FineLinen]

What Love Is All About

It was a busy morning, approximately 8:30 am, when an elderly gentleman, in his 80’s arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He stated that he was in a hurry and that he had an appointment at 9:00 am. I took his vital signs, and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would be able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound.

On exam it was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and redressed his wound. While taking care of him, we began to engage in conversation. I asked him if he had a doctor’s appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife. I then inquired as to her health. He told me that she had been there for awhile and was a victim of Alzheimer’s Disease.

As we talked and I finished dressing his wound, I asked if she would be worried if he was a bit late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was, and hadn’t recognized him in five years. I was surprised, and asked him, “And you still go every morning, even though she doesn’t know who you are?” He smiled and patted my hand and said,

"She doesn’t know me, but I still know who she is."

 

[FineLinen]

One businessman was in debt and couldn’t figure out a way out of it. Creditors were pressing him. Suppliers were demanding for a payment. He was sitting on a bench in the park with his head down, thinking what could save the company from bankruptcy.

Suddenly, an old man appeared in front of him.

– I see that something is bothering you, – he said.

After listening to the businessman, the old man said:
– I think I can help you.

He asked the businessman, what his name was, wrote him a check and said:
– Take this money. We will meet here exactly in one year, and you will be able to return it to me at that time.

After that, he turned around and disappeared just as suddenly as he appeared.

The businessman saw a check in his hands for an amount of 500 thousand dollars, signed by John Rockefeller, one of the richest people in the world at that time!

‘I could end all of my problems in no time!’ – He thought.

But instead, the businessman decided to put the check into his safe. Only one thought about its existence gave him strength to find a solution to save his business.

With the return of his optimism, he concluded profitable deals. During a couple of months he got out of debt and started to earn money again.

Exactly one year later, he returned to the park with the same check. At the agreed time the old man appeared again. And at the moment, when the businessman wanted to return the check and to share his story of success, a nurse ran up and grabbed the old man.

– I’m so glad, I caught him! – She exclaimed. – I hope he wasn’t bothering you. He always runs away from the house and tells he is John Rockefeller.

The businessman was bemused. During the whole year he was spinning and building a business, buying and selling, convinced that he had half a million dollars. And suddenly he understood that it’s not the money, real or imaginary, that turned his life up.

It was his new confidence and belief that gave him strength to achieve everything that he had now.

 

[FineLinen]

In December 2001, Barry Parr was working as a window cleaner in a tiny UK village.

One afternoon, just as he was finishing a job, he heard a yell and looked up to see a 14-year-old girl preparing to hang herself from a nearby tree.

Already showing signs of his incipient heroism, Parr grabbed his ladder and raced across the road to try and talk her down.

And that’s when things got real.The moment Parr started to climb his ladder, the girl jumped.

Luckily, Parr managed to catch her in his arms, holding her far enough off the ground to save her life.

Less luckily, he found himself now stuck up a ladder, holding a violent teenage girl desperate to squirm out of his grasp and finish the job.

Bear in mind this was the middle of a very cold winter, and the two were all alone in the village.

How long do you think Parr managed to hold her up for? Ten minutes? Twenty?

It was a whole hour.

For an entire hour, Parr balanced on his ladder, holding a hysterical, suicidal girl aloft in the searing cold.

Eventually someone realized this wasn’t performance art and called the cops—but not before Parr had proven how far the world was ready to go to keep this one lonely girl alive.

 

[FineLinen]

The Scars Of Life

Some years ago, on a hot summer day in south Florida, a little boy decided to go for a swim in the old swimming hole behind his house. In a hurry to dive into the cool water he ran out the back door leaving behind shoes, socks, and shirt as he went. He flew into the water not realizing that as he swam toward the middle of the lake that an alligator was swimming toward the shore.

His father was working in the yard and saw the two as they got closer and closer together. In utter fear he ran toward the water, yelling to his son as loudly as he could. Hearing his voice, the little boy became alarmed and made a U-turn to swim to his father.

But it was too late.

Just as the little boy reached his father, the alligator reached him.

From the dock the father grabbed his little boy by the arms just as the alligator snatched his legs. That began an incredible tug-of-war between the two. The alligator was much stronger than the father, but the father was much too passionate to let go. A farmer happened to drive by and heard his screams. Grabbing a rifle the farmer raced from his truck, took aim, and shot the alligator.

Remarkably, after weeks and weeks in the hospital, the little boy survived. His legs were extremely scarred by the vicious attack of the animal. And on his arms were deep scratches where his father's fingernails had dug into the boy's flesh in his effort to hang on to the son he loved.

A newspaper reporter interviewing the boy after the trauma asked if he would show him the scars on his legs. The boy lifted his pant legs.

And then with obvious pride, the boy said to the reporter, "But look at my arms. I have great scars on my arms, too! I have them because my Dad wouldn't let go."

 

[FineLinen]

Tooth that saved a soldier’s life

The most miraculous event I witnessed showed how a tooth saved a sergeant’s life!
Christmas Eve morning a soldier came into our clinic at the Ibn Sina Hospital in downtown Baghdad covered in his own blood. He recounted an incredible story.

Early Christmas Eve morning, two squads were assigned to sweep and clear two adjacent homes where Iraq terrorists were holed-up. The patient, SGT C, was leading one of those assault squads. The other squad hit their target first.

SGT C said that he heard a lot of small arms fire and yelling, so he thought he would round the corner and size up the situation before advancing his team. Unfortunately, as he turned the corner, he found himself staring directly into the barrel of a 9mm automatic pistol. SGT C said he never had time to be scared, he just knew he was dead. The terrorist pulled the trigger and, miraculously, SGT C found himself still standing.

He figured the bullet had missed. He advanced on the Iraqi, who immediately surrendered.

After the enemy was rounded up, SGT C said he started to feel light! headed and one of his soldiers insisted that he proceed to the hospital. He realized at this time that he had lost his front tooth in the gun fight. He figured the ballistic shock from the weapon’s blast had knocked it loose. He was wrong.

When he presented early that morning Major Kimberly Perkins, our oral surgeon, took a panograph and discovered the incredible truth. The 9mm bullet did NOT miss SGT C. He was hit directly in the face. The bullet entered just below his nose where it impacted the apex of #8. The energy from the bullet was transferred to the tooth, literally ejecting the tooth from its socket, and stopping the bullet in its track. Other than the missing tooth, the majority of SGT C’s injuries were confined to soft tissue.

According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, this is a true account from Las Vegas dentist Dr. Anna Lee Kruyer who served with an Army dental team in Iraq for a year.

 

[FineLinen]

Everything Is Black & White: everything!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...ature=emb_logo

 

[FineLinen]

This is called the rescuing hug.

A struggling newborn improved dramatically after being placed in an incubator with her healthy twin sister.

 

[FineLinen]

The Homing Instinct

A hundred years ago, a pair of English ornithologists took birds from their mother’s nest on the island of Skokholm off the coast of Wales. They tagged those birds and transported them to various far-off places, then released them to see whether the birds could find their way home to Wales.

One of those birds was released in Venice. Despite the tremendous distance (about 1,000 miles) and despite the fact that this species wasn’t native to the region, the bird found its way back home by a path it had never flown — in just over 14 days!

That experiment was repeated with even greater distances.

Two birds were transported by train in a closed box to London, then flown by airplane to Boston. Only one of the two survived that trip. The lone surviving bird flew all the way across the Atlantic Ocean and found its way back to its mother’s nest in 12 days and 12 hours!

Pretty impressive, right? Even ornithologists are amazed by this inbuilt capacity called the homing instinct. It’s the inherent ability to find their way home across great distances, despite unfamiliar terrain.

There’s a similar instinct hardwired into the human soul — the longing to be blessed by God. In the words of Saint Augustine,

“You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

The 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal called it the

“God-shaped hole.”

Pope Francis called it

“nostalgia for God.”

Yet despite our innate nature to long for God’s blessings, they don’t always come in our timing.

 

[FineLinen]

Dinner with an angel.

 

[FineLinen]

Martha Mason

Martha Mason graduated valedictorian of her high school and earned two college degrees at the top of the class—all while living her life in an iron lung.

Paralyzed by polio at age 11 in 1948 and confined 23 hours a day in an immobile, 800-pound horizontal tube, the voracious reader stayed “endlessly curious”—and amazingly adaptable.

Custom-built intercoms connected her to school and made her a “regular member” in her classes, with the technology helping her from high school through Wake Forest College (now University), where the English major arrived at her dorm room in a bakery truck.

By the time she died in 2009, Mason had been in the iron lung for a record-setting 60 years. “Something happens to all of us,” she said in a documentary about her, Martha in Lattimore.

“Mine is more visible than yours, but you have to deal with your things, too. None of us are exempt from things that would make us extraordinary people if the world knew the story.”

 

[FineLinen]

A Muslim man who converted to Christianity says that many Muslims are giving their lives to Jesus, and most of them are doing so through dreams and visions, rather than through evangelism.

According to The Christian Post, the Christian convert from the West Bank, identified as Ismail, reportedly had to give everything up when he made the decision to follow Christ.

-continued below-

Most Muslims Come to Faith through Dreams and Visions, Says Persecuted Christian Convert