Growing Apples

One day I stopped to think about growing apples. I was munching a delicious, juicy apple and took a big bite. As a result I got an apple seed into my mouth. I spat it out into my hand, with the intention of throwing it away. But instead I looked at the apple seed. Really looked. It was very dark brown, almost black. Its shape reminded me of a candle flame. A little dark brown candle flame…

I realized I was holding an apple tree in the palm of my hand. A little seed with the potential to become a beautiful big tree - a tree that could grow thousands of apples in its lifetime. Thousands of apples, each containing several seeds, each capable of growing a new tree which again could produce thousands of apples. 

Why then the world wasn't filled with apple trees?

It is a rule of nature that only a few of these seeds grow. Most never do or are destroyed early on in their growth.

And it came to my mind it's quite often so with people's dreams also. Wonderful ideas come to our minds but they die too soon - we don't tend to the little saplings, we don't protect them as we should. And then one day we wonder what happened to our dreams - why did they never come true?

I put the apple seed on the table, and bent down to see how the light was reflected from it, this nature's tiny wonder. I wondered when someone was seriously growing apples, how many times they had to try to get a seed to germinate? How much work did it require?

Maybe it was like with our dreams: the seeds of your dreams did not automatically grow. Like planting an apple tree It might take many trys: like a hundred job applications to get that good job. You might send your manuscript out two hundred times before it was accepted. You might meet dozens of people until you met the true friend.

But if you kept on sowing the seeds of your dream, one day you would succeed. And after that others would comment you were lucky to be successful - when in fact you probably failed more often than you would like to count. But you were good at failing - you learned, you adapted, and then with your new knowlegde you tried again. And again. And again. And one day success was yours.

I picked up the apple seed again - but instead of throwing it away I took an empty flower pot, poured some earth into it and planted the seed. Maybe one day it would grown into a proud tree. I'd never knew if I didn't try.

Clay Balls

 

 
A man was exploring caves by the Seashore. In one of the caves, he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake.

They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.

He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!

Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left.

Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls, with their hidden treasure, into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands but he had just thrown it away!

It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.

We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.

There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth

May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them. 

Moral:" There's a drop of greatness in everyone. It's what you do with your drop that matters. It could be an ocean, a pond or a puddle that eventually dries up."

Good And Evil.........

  

Every morning a woman baked Chapati, an Indian flatbread, for members of her family and an extra one for a hungry passerby. She would always place the extra Chapati on the windowsill, for whosoever needed to eat it.

She noticed a hunchback came every day and took the extra Chapati. Instead of expressing gratitude, he would muttered the following words as he went on his way: "The evil you do remains with you. The good you do, comes back to you!"

This went on day after day after day. The woman felt very irritated. "Not a word of gratitude," she said to herself. "Every day this hunchback utters this jingle! What does he mean? "

One day, exasperated, she decided to do away with him. "I shall get rid of this hunchback," she said.

And what did she do? She added poison to the Chapati she prepared for him!

As she was about to place it on the windowsill, her hands trembled. "What is this I am doing?" she said. Immediately, she threw his Chapati into the fire, prepared another one and put it on the sill.

As usual, the hunchback came, picked up the Chapati and muttered the words: "The evil you do, remains with you. The good you do, comes back to you!"

The hunchback proceeded on his way, blissfully unaware of the war raging in the mind of the woman.

Every day, as the woman placed the Chapati on the windowsill, she offered a prayer for her son who had gone to a distant place to seek his fortune. For many months she had no news of him and she always prayed for his safe return.

That evening, there was a knock on the door. As she opened it, she was surprised to find her son standing in the doorway. He had grown thin and lean. His garments were tattered and torn. He was hungry, starved and weak.

Looking at his mother he said, "Mom, it's a miracle I'm here. While I was but a mile away, I was so famished that I collapsed. I would have died, but just then an old hunchback passed by. I begged him for a morsel of food and he was kind enough to give me a whole Chapati."

"When he gave it to me, he said, 'This is what I eat every day. Today, I shall give it to you, for your need is greater than mine!'"

As the mother heard those words, her face turned pale. She leaned against the door for support. She remembered the poisoned Chapati that she had made that morning. Had she not burnt it in the fire, it would have been eaten by her own son and he would have lost his life!

It was then that she realized the significance of the words: "The evil you do remains with you. The good you do, comes back to you!"

Moral of the story: Do good and don't ever stop doing good, even if it's not appreciated at that time. 

Thinking "Out Of The Box"

Many hundreds of years ago in a small Italian town, a merchant had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to the moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the merchant's beautiful daughter so he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the merchant's debt if he could marry the daughter. Both the merchant and his daughter were horrified by the proposal.

The moneylender told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty bag. The girl would then have to pick one pebble from the bag. If she picked the black pebble, she would become the moneylender's wife and her father's debt would be forgiven. If she picked the white pebble, she need not marry him and her father's debt would still be forgiven. But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

They were standing on a pebble-strewn path in the merchant's garden. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick her pebble from the bag.

What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her? Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble.
   
   
2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the moneylender as a cheat.
   
   
3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.
   

The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking.

Read on...

The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.

"Oh, how clumsy of me," she said. "But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked."

Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the moneylender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an advantageous one.


MORAL OF THE STORY: Most complex problems do have a solution, sometimes we have to think about them in a different way.

Don't miss the Spirit's blessings...

Thought of the day

"Don't only be close to someone who makes you happy..Be close to someone who can't be happy without you.

It makes a lot of difference in LIFE................"

Dads Blessings

A young man was getting ready to graduate from college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer's showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted.

As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally, on the morning of his graduation, his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautifully wrapped gift box. Curious, but somewhat disappointed, the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible, with the young man's name embossed in gold. Angry, he raised his voice to his father and said "With all your money, you give me a Bible?" and stormed out of the house, leaving the Bible.

Many years passed and the young man was very successful in business. He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him. He had not seen him since that graduation day. Before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to his son. He needed to come home immediately and take care of things.

When he arrived at his father's house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart. He began to search through his father's important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. And as he did, a car key dropped from the back of the Bible. It had a tag with the dealer's name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words PAID IN FULL.

How many times do we miss Spirit's blessings and answers to our prayers because they do not arrive exactly as we have expected?

How to tackle this Life!

* Life ends when you stop dreaming, hope ends when you stop believing and love ends when you stop caring.So dream hope and love...Makes Life Beautiful
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*Life is small,Live it!Love is pure,Enjoy it! Anger is injurious,Dump it!Troubles are short,Face it!Memories are sweet,Cherish it!I am the BEST,Accept it!
------------------------------------------------------X-----------------------------------------* DREAMS visit us when we are asleep -but commitment wakes us up each day and gives us every chance to make our DREAMS come true!
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*Life is a book, we all read it. Love is a blessimg, we all need it. Always be happy, walk with a smile. Remember in this world we are just for a while.
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*Dont expect anything from life,expectations hurt.When don't expect,every moment is a surprise and every surprise brings Happiness.

Be Optimistic !!

Success is Not Permanent & Failure is Not Final !
So, Never Stop Working after Success and
Never Stop Trying after Failure..

As all gives you lots of experience to face the challenges in your life.
Always be optimistic towards the life and remember that If we desire to blossom
like a rose in the garden,then we must learn the art of adjusting with the thorns
Difficulties will make you shine.