Stories Of Hope & Inspiration

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The Building Blocks of Character

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." -Helen Keller

Listen to Pain

"Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." -C.S. Lewis

 

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Make Humor an Asset

"Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keep friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment." -Greenville Kleisser

The Building Blocks of Character

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." -Helen Keller

Listen to Pain

"Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." -C.S. Lewis

Be Healed by Compassion

"The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being." -Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

 

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Change Your Thoughts

"What you thought before has led to every choice you have made, and this adds up to you at this moment. If you want to change who you are physically, mentally, and spiritually, you will have to change what you think." -Dr. Patrick Gentempo

What Saves You?

"Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness." -Reinhold Niebuhr

The Power of a Touch

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." -Leo Buscaglia

 

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Share your time

A man came home from work late again, tired and irritated, to find his 5 year old son waiting for him at the door.

'Daddy, may I ask you a question?'

'Yeah, sure, what is it?' replied the man.

'Daddy, how much money do you make an hour?'

'That's none of your business! What makes you ask such a thing?' the man said angrily.

'I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?' pleaded the little boy. 'If you must know, I make $20.00 an hour.'

'Oh,' the little boy replied, head bowed. Looking up, he said, 'Daddy, may I borrow $10.00 please?'

The father was furious. 'If the only reason you wanted to know how much money I make is just so you can borrow some to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why you're being so selfish. I work long, hard hours everyday and don't have time for such childish games.'

The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door.

The man sat down and started to get even madder about the little boy's questioning. How dare him ask such questions only to get some money.

After an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think he may have been a little hard on his son. Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $10.00, and he really didn't ask for money very often.

The man went to the door of the little boy's room and opened the door.

'Are you asleep son?' he asked.

'No daddy, I'm awake,' replied the boy.

'I've been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier,' said the man.

'It's been a long day and I took my aggravation out on you. Here's that $10.00 you asked for.'

The little boy sat straight up, beaming. 'Oh, thank you daddy!' he yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow, he pulled out some more crumpled up bills.

The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at the man.

'Why did you want more money if you already had some?' the father grumbled.

'Because I didn't have enough, but now I do,' the little boy replied.

'Daddy, I have $20.00 now. Can I buy an hour of your time?'

-Author Unknown-

 

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"God has mercy on us. He says ‘yes’ to us, He wills to be on our side, to be our God against all odds. Indeed against all odds, because we do not deserve this mercy, because, as we rightly suppose, He should say ‘no’ to us all. But He does not say ‘no’; He says ‘yes’. He is not against us; He is for us. This is God’s mercy." -Karl Barth-

 

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Do you know that our God speaks in the red letters and the black letters and the white spaces between the lines. The only thing necessary is the unction of His Spirit to grasp any of it!

And then, there are those wonderful awakenings from death where letters are not involved, only a simple awakening.

 

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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."

 

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How to change the world

The ninth week of SEAL training is referred to as Hell Week. It is six days of no sleep, constant physical and mental harassment and one special day at the Mud Flats.

The Mud Flats are an area between San Diego and Tijuana where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana slues—a swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you.

It is on Wednesday of Hell Week that you paddle down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing-cold mud, the howling wind and the incessant pressure from the instructors to quit.

As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class, having committed some "egregious infraction of the rules" was ordered into the mud. The mud consumed each man till there was nothing visible but our heads.

The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only five men would quit—just five men and we could get out of the oppressive cold.

Looking around the mud flat, it was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over eight hours till the sun came up—eight more hours of bone-chilling cold.

The chattering teeth and shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything. And then, one voice began to echo through the night—one voice raised in song.

The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm.

One voice became two, and two became three, and before long everyone in the class was singing. We knew that if one man could rise above the misery then others could as well.

The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing—but the singing persisted. And somehow, the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away.

If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world, it is the power of hope.

The power of one person—Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan named Malala—can change the world by giving people hope.

So, if you want to change the world, start singing when you're up to your neck in mud.

Source: The commencement address by Admiral William H. McRaven, ninth commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, at the University of Texas at Austin on 17 May 2014

 

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"Thomas Edison said he knew 999 ways that a light bulb did not work. He didn’t give up, and along with his right-hand man, Lewis Lattimer, they eventually came up with a successful light bulb. There’s a cleaning formula called Formula 409. Of course, the reason they call it that is because the first 408 didn’t work, but they didn’t give up and they kept going. I always say, “If something doesn’t work out, make sure you analyze it and try to find out why it didn’t work and don’t repeat that.” It’s like people who are always late. You can always count on them being late. They never seem to learn that if you get organized and you leave 15 minutes earlier, you won’t be late. They just don’t seem to be able to understand that. And, a person who can learn from their mistakes is a person who is going to be successful." -Dr. Ben Carson

 

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A Little Girl's Glimpse of Heaven

 

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A 15-yr-old Dog's Gift to a Grieving Man, by Laura Simpson

"A Dog Named Jessie" | STORIES - Inspirational and Christian

 

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"He comes to us in the brokenness of our health, in the shipwreck of our family lives, in the loss of all possible peace of mind, even in the very thick of our sins. He saves us in our disasters, not from them. He emphatically does not promise to meet only the odd winner of the self-improvement lottery. He meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing." -Robert Farrar Capon

 

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Giving is better

I knew I was not supposed to be quite so excited. I was too old for that. At age eleven, the oldest and my mom’s “grown up” girl, I had toeep my cool. I was in middle school after all. But every chance I got, when I was alone, I checked each present under the tree. I read every tag and felt every package, guessing at the contents within. I had examined each gift so often that I could tell which present went to which person without even looking at the tags.

It had been a tough year for my family. Whenever my mom looked over at the tree and scattered presents, she would sigh and warn us, “There won’t be as much for Christmas this year. Try not to be disappointed.” Christmas had traditionally been a time for my parents to spoil us. In years past, the presents would pile up and spill out from under the tree, taking over the living room. I had heard the phrase “giving is better than receiving,” but thought that whoever had said that must have been out of their mind. Getting presents was the whole point! It was the reason I couldn’t get to sleep on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas morning, we eagerly waited in the hallway until Dad told us everything was ready. We rushed into the living room and let the wrapping paper fly. We made weak attempts to wait and watch while other family members opened their presents, but as the time passed we lost our self-control.

“Here’s another one for you,” said Mom as she handed me a package. I looked at it, confused. Having spent so much time examining the presents before Christmas, I recognized this one. But it had not been mine. It was my mom’s. A new label had been put on it, with my name written in my mother’s handwriting.

“Mom, I can’t…”

I was stopped by my mother’s eager, joyful look—a look I could not really understand. “Let’s see what it is, honey. Hurry and open it.”

It was a blow dryer. Though this may seem but a simple gift, to me it was so much more. Being an eleven-year-old girl, I was stunned. In my world, where receiving outweighed giving by light years, my mom’s act of selflessness was incomprehensible. It was a huge act. Tears filled my eyes and I thought in disbelief about how much my mom must love me to give up her Christmas so I could have a few more presents.

I have always remembered that Christmas fondly. It had such an impact on me. As an adult with children in my life whom I adore, I can now understand my mom’s actions. I see how she was not “giving up her Christmas” as I had thought, but was finding an even greater joy in her Christmas because giving truly is better than receiving. My mom’s simple act meant the world to me. -—Jennifer Yardley Barney

Chicken Soup For The Soul

 

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1. Fall and rise

Today, when I slipped on the wet tile floor a boy in a wheelchair caught me before I slammed my head on the ground. He said, “believe it or not, that’s almost exactly how I injured my back 3 years ago .

2. A father’s advice

Today, my father told me, “just go for it and give it a try! You don’t have to be a professional to build a successful product. Amateurs started google and apple. Professionals built the Titanic

3. The power of uniqueness.

Today, I asked my mentor – a very successful business man in his 70’s – what his top 3 tips are for success. He smiled and said, “read something no one else is reading, think something no one else is thinking, and do something no one else is doing.

4. Looking back

Today, I interviewed my grandmother for part of a research paper I’m working on for my psychology class. When I asked her to define success in her own words, she said, “success is when you look back at your life and the memories make you smile.

5. Try and you shall know

I am blind by birth. When I was 8 years old, I wanted to play baseball. I asked my father- “dad, can I play baseball?” he said “you’ll never know until you try.” when I was a teenager, I asked him, – “dad can I become a surgeon?”. He replied “son, you’ll never know until you try.” today I am a surgeon, just because I tried!