Stories Of Hope & Inspiration

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A great Japanese warrior named Nobunaga was going to war with a fierce enemy with only one-tenth the number of men the opposition commanded. He knew that he could win the fight with a well planned strategy, but his soldiers were in doubt.

On the way the leader stopped at a Shinto shrine and told his men: “After my visit to the shrine I will toss a coin. If the head comes, we will win; if tails, we will lose. Destiny holds us in her hand.”

Nobunaga entered the shrine and offered his prayers. Then he came forth and tossed a coin in front of his men. Heads appeared. The soldiers were filled with confident and were eager to win the battle.

“No one can change the hand of destiny,” one of his attendants told him after the battle.

“Indeed not,” said Nobunaga and showed the coin which was doubled with heads on the both side.

 

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Painting God

https://www.littlethings.com/do-you-believe-paintings-god/

 

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On a lighter note

Quarantine Smiles

 

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“All merciful love can thus descend to everyone - we believe that it does so. And now, can we assume that there are souls that remain perpetually closed to such love? As a possibility in principle, this cannot be rejected. In reality, it becomes infinitely improbable. Grace can steal its way into souls and spread itself more and more. Human freedom can be neither broken nor neutralized by divine freedom, but it can be 'outwitted'. The descent of grace to the human soul is a free act of divine love…and there are no limits to how far it may extend.” -St. Faustina

"There is no misery that could be a match for My mercy". -Sister Edith Stein-

 

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Actual teacher exam: answer by pupil=

 

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There was a blind girl. She had a loving boyfriend, who was always there for her. The girl hated herself and everyone around, just because she was blind.

Her boyfriend asked her to marry him. But she said: "If I could only see the world, I would marry you“.

One day someone had donated a pair of eyes to this girl and after an operation she could see everything. But when her loving boyfriend came to her and asked if she would marry him now, she just looked at him with disdain, as she could see now that he was blind too. Thus she refused to marry him. He walked away full of sadness and later wrote a short letter of few words to her: "Just take care of my eyes darling“.

 

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“The mature Christians I have met along the way are those who have failed and have learned to live gracefully with their failure.” -Brennan Manning-

“The New Testament has many examples of men and women who started out well and then faltered along the way. Yet on Easter night I appeared to Peter. James is not remembered for his ambition but for the sacrifice of his life for Me. Philip did see the Father in Me when I pointed the way, and the disciples who despaired had enough courage to recognize Me when we broke bread at the end of the road to Emmaus. My point, little brother, is this: I expect more failure from you than you expect from yourself.” -Brennan Manning-

 

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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.

 

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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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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.

 

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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.

 

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“The Father Who Lost Two Sons“

This is about what’s normally called The Parable of the Prodigal Son. That’s only one of the two sons in the parable, the younger boy. The older boy is the one—the other son—who is lost. And the point about changing the name of the parable is that the parables are almost always misnamed. The Parable of the Lost Sheep is not about the lost sheep. All the sheep ever did was get lost. The parable is about the passion of the shepherd who lost the sheep to find the sheep. His passion to find is what drives the parable; and consequently it isn’t the Prodigal’s lostness, wasting all his money on wine, women and song in the far country; and it isn’t the elder brother’s grousing and complaining and score keeping that stands against him. What counts in the parable is the father’s unceasing desire to find the sons he lost—both of them—and to raise both of them up from the dead....

“The Father Who Lost Two Sons”

 

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The Story of Richard Wurmbrand

“God, I know surely that You do not exist. But if perchance You exist, which I contest, it is not my duty to believe in You; it is Your duty to reveal Yourself to me.”

The young Jewish atheist who uttered that flippant prayer was Richard Wurmbrand, born in 1909 in Bucharest, Romania. Little did he know how completely God would answer him, call him to a life of service to Christ, and use him to raise up one of the strongest ministries in the world today that helps the persecuted church.

Salvation and Service

In 1938, in a remote Romanian village, an old German carpenter named Christian Wolfkes lay sick. The only person by his side giving aid and comfort was a Jewish follower of Christ. When Wolfkes recovered, he was so grateful to God that he prayed earnestly for the opportunity to share the gospel with a Jewish person. Although none lived in his village, still he prayed.

One day a young, newly married Jewish couple arrived on vacation. They were Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand. The carpenter enthusiastically gave Richard a Bible. Richard had read the Scriptures once but had gotten nothing from them. However, this time, his heart was stirred. He didn’t know why, until he learned the secret. The carpenter and his wife had spent many long hours every day praying for his salvation. “The Bible he gave me was written not so much in words, but in flames of love fired by his prayers,” Richard would write later.

The carpenter spoke about God’s unconditional love for the Jewish people (Dt. 7:6–7; Jer. 31:3), the Messianic fulfillments in Jesus, and Jesus’ purpose in coming to Earth: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (Jn. 3:17). The Spirit of God freed Richard’s heart, and he believed. Sabina also came to faith and was so deeply changed she soon brought others to the Messiah. >>>>

https://israelmyglory.org/article/th…ard-wurmbrand/

 

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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."

 

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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.

 

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Everything Is Black & White: everything!

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

 

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