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WITandWISDOM(tm) - August 19, 1999 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: "Select a few people to be particularly kind to today, those you were a little harsh with yesterday." - Norman Vincent Peale (E-zine: INSPIRATION A DAY! Mailto:inspiration_a_day-subscribe@listbot.com) ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: A nurse took the tired, anxious serviceman to the bedside. "Your son is here," she said to the old man. She had to repeat the words several times before the patient's eyes opened. Heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack, he dimly saw the young man in the Marine Corps uniform standing outside the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Marine wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man's limp ones, squeezing a message of love and encouragement. The nurse brought a chair so that the Marine could sit alongside the bed. Nights are long in hospitals--but all through the night the young Marine sat there in the poorly lighted ward, holding the old man's hand and offering him words of love and strength. Occasionally, the nurse suggested that the Marine move away and rest awhile. He refused. Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the Marine was oblivious of her and of the night noises of the hospital - the clanking of the oxygen tank, the laughter of the night staff members exchanging greetings, the cries and moans of the other patients. Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words. The dying man said nothing, only held tightly to his son all through the night. Along towards dawn, the old man died. The Marine placed the lifeless hand he had been holding and went to tell the nurse. While she did what she had to do, he waited. Finally, she returned. She started to offer words of sympathy, but the Marine interrupted her. "Who was that man?" he asked. The nurse was startled, "He was your father" she answered. "No, he wasn't," the Marine replied. "I never saw him before in my life." "Then why didn't you say something when I took you to him?" "I knew right away, there had been a mistake, but I also knew he needed his son, and his son just wasn't here. When I realized that he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, I knew how much he needed me. I stayed." I should like to be there the morning of the Resurrection. The old man will no longer have a worn-out body. He will have a perfect body. And I can just feel the joy and love that will flow between him and the Marine Lieutenant. . . . "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these. . . . ." - "NIGHT WATCH" by Roy Popkin (Carol Blum) ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: ABSENT- MINDED CONFESSORS At the grocery store, I wrote my check out for $20 more than the amount of my purchase, as I often do. While waiting for my check to be processed, I casually mentioned to the clerk that the last time I had shopped there, I had forgotten to take the $20 that was owed me. "This time," I told her, "I won't make that mistake." Seconds later, I carefully tucked the $20 in my wallet and headed fro my car, only to hear the cashier calling after me. "Hey, lady! You forgot your groceries!" - Christine Hill When our credit-card bills arrived, there was a company name neither my wife nor I found familiar. I called the business in question and explained that they had billed my credit card, but I had never heard of them. The woman informed me that they were a mail-order house, and if I gave her my name, she would check her records. A few minutes later she reminded me that I had purchased self-improvement tapes entitled "Mega Memory." - Robert O. Hagman An absent-minded co-worker and I went on a business trip. True to form, he left a book on the plane, arrived at the hotel with someone else's luggage, then lost his camera in a restaurant. Returning home a week later, we headed to the airport parking lot to get his car, only to discover that he had no keys; he had left them in the trunk lock the week before. Fortunately, someone had turned them in to an attendant. My colleague was driving me home when I noticed the gas tank was empty, so we stopped at a service station. After paying for the gas, he hopped back in the car and drove off. "Promise me that you won't tell anyone at work that I left those keys in the trunk lock," he pleaded. "Okay," I agreed, "as long as I can tell them that you paid for gas and left without pumping it." - Michelle A. Betzel - Reader's Digest, March 1999, Copyright 1999 (Magazine: Reader's Digest http:www.readersdigest.com) ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: An airliner flew into a violent thunderstorm and was soon swaying and bumping around the sky. One very nervous lady happened to be sitting next to a clergyman and turned to him. "Can't you do something?" she demanded angrily. "I'm sorry ma'am," the Reverend said gently, "I'm in sales, not management." (E-zine: KITTY'S DAILY MEWS http://www.katscratch.com) ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: DID YOU KNOW - portions of the Bible have been printed in 2,212 languages - a complete Bible exists in 366 languages - an additional 928 languages have a New Testament - 918 have at least one book of the Bible - the most recent total of living languages is 6,700. Some quick arithmetic shows 4,488 languages that have absolutely NO Bible! This information is from a reference called "Ethnologue: languages of the World" published by SIL, Dallas, Texas. Their URL is http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/ (E-zine: MONDAY FODDER Mailto:dgaufaaa@iohk.com?subject=Subscribe_Monday_Fodder) |