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| Recently I read a fable about a dog that loved to chase other animals. He bragged about his great running skill and said he could catch anything. Well, it wasn't long until his boastful claims were put to the test by a certain rabbit. With ease the little creature outran his barking pursuer. The other animals, watching with glee, began to laugh. The dog excused himself, however, by saying, "You forget, I was only running for fun. He was running for his life!"
That does make a difference! Motivation is the most important factor in everything we do.
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| Charles H. Spurgeon in training young ministers said to his students, "When you talk about heaven let your face light up with a heavenly glory. When you tell about hell, your everyday face will do." |
| When East and West Berlin were still divided by the wall the people in East Berlin, who were under Communist control, filled a dump truck full of trash and garbage and dumped it on the West Berlin side of the all. The people in West Berlin, who were free, filled a dump truck with canned goods and non-perishable items and stacked it neatly on the East Berlin side of the wall and put a sign beside it that read "Each gives what each has to give." |
| The woman and her daughter went Christmas shopping together. The crowds were awful. The woman had to skip lunch because she was on a tight schedule. She became tired and hungry, and her feet were hurting. She was more than little irritable. As they left the last store, she asked her daughter, "Did you see the nasty look the salesman gave me?" The daughter answered, "He didn't give it to you, Mom. You had it when you went in." |
| David, a 2-year old with leukemia, was taken by him mother, Deborah, to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, to see Dr. John Truman who specializes in treating children with cancer and various blood diseases. Dr. Truman's prognosis was devastating: "He has a 50-50 chance." The countless clinic visits, the blood tests, the intravenous drugs, the fear and pain--the mother's ordeal can be almost as bad as the child's because she must stand by, unable to bear the pain herself. David never cried in the waiting room, and although his friends in the clinic had to hurt him and stick needles in him, he hustled in ahead of him mother with a smile, sure of the welcome he always got. When he was three, David had to have a spinal tap--a painful procedure at any age. It was explained to him that, because he was sick, Dr. Truman had to do something to make him better. "If it hurts, remember it's because he loves you," Deborah said. The procedure was horrendous. It took three nurses to hold David still, while he yelled and sobbed and struggled. When it was almost over, the tiny boy, soaked in sweat and tears, looked up at the doctor and gasped, "Thank you, Dr. Tooman, for my hurting." Miracles of Courage, Monica Dickens, 1985 |
| Explorer Thomas Hearne and his party had just set out on a rigorous expedition in northern Canada to find the mouth of the Coppermine River. A few days after they left, thieves stole most of their supplies. Hearne's response to the apparent misfortune can inspire us all, for he wrote, "The weight of our baggage being lightened, our next day's journey was more swift and pleasant." |
| Both Samuel Chase of Maryland and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts were among the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. Gerry asked Chase, a huge man of 250 pounds, why he was willing to risk his significant property holdings to sign the Declaration. Chase turned to the frail Gerry and replied, "It's you who will have the far more difficult time. With your slight build, you're likely to keep dangling on the gallows while I will only but suffer for a moment." |
| Cripple him, and you have a Sir Walter Scott. Lock him in a prison cell, and you have a John Bunyan. Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge, and you have a George Washington. Raise him in abject poverty and you have an Abraham Lincoln. Strike him down with infantile paralysis, and he becomes Franklin Roosevelt. Burn him so severely that the doctors say he'll never walk again, and you have a Glenn Cunningham -- who set the world's one-mile record in 1934. Deafen him and you have a Ludwig van Beethoven. Have him or her born black in a society filled with racial discrimination, and you have a Booker T. Washington, a Marian Anderson, and a George Washington Carver. Call him a slow learner, "retarded," and write him off as uneducable, and you have an Albert Einstein.
As one man summed it up: Life is about 20% in what happens to us and 80% in the way we respond to the events.
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