I Don't Know the Secret to Success

But the key to failure is to try to please everyone.   

The story is told of a painter who desired to produce one work which would please the entire world.  She drew a picture which required her utmost skill and took it to the public marketplace.  She posted directions at the bottom of the piece for spectators to mark with a brush each portion of the picture that didn't meet their approval.  The spectators came and, in general, applauded the work.  But each, eager to make a personal critique, marked a small portion of the picture.  By evening, the painter was mortified to fine the entire picture had became a blot.

The next day the painter returned with a copy of the first picture.  This time she asked the spectators to mark the portions of the work they admired.  The spectators again complied.  When the artist returned several hours later, she found every stroke that had been panned the day before had received praise by this day's critics.

The artist concluded, "I now believe the best way to please one-half of the world is not to mind what the other says."

People will always have an opinion about what we say or do.  That is why we live our lives according to the words of the Bible--God's opinion.  Then we will not fret over the opinions of others.

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other."

Matthew 6:24

Around the Table



One Thanksgiving season a family was seated around their table, looking at the annual holiday bird. From the oldest to the youngest,
they were to express their praise. When they came to the 5-year-old in the family, he began by looking at the turkey and expressing his
thanks to the turkey, saying although he had not tasted it he knew it would be good. After that rather novel expression of thanksgiving, he began with a more predictable line of credits, thanking his mother for cooking the turkey and his father for buying the turkey. But then he went beyond that. He joined together a whole hidden
multitude of benefactors, linking them with cause and effect.

He said, "I thank you for the checker at the grocery store who checked out the turkey. I thank you for the grocery store people who put it on the shelf. I thank you for the farmer who made it fat. I thank you for the man who made the feed. I thank you for those who brought the turkey to the store."

Using his Columbo-like little mind, he traced the turkey all the way from its origin to his plate. And then at the end he solemnly said "Did I leave anybody out?"

His 3-year-older brother, embarrassed by all those proceedings, said, "God."

Solemnly and without being flustered at all, the 5-year-old said,"I was about to get to him."

Well, isn't that the question about which we ought to think at Thanksgiving time? Are we really going to get to him this Thanksgiving?

Author Unknown

"Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand."Psalm 95: 6-7

My Comfort Zone



I  use to have a Comfort Zone
Where I knew I couldn't fail
The same four walls of busy work
Were really more like jail.

I longed so much to do the things
I'd never done before,
But I stayed inside my Comfort Zone
And paced the same old floor

I claimed to be so busy
With the things inside my zone,
But deep inside I longed for
Something special of my own.

I couldn't let my life go by,
Just watching others win.
I held my breath and stepped outside
And let the change begin.

I took a step and with new strength
I'd never felt before,
I kissed my Comfort Zone 'goodbye'
And closed and locked the door.

If you are in a Comfort Zone,
Afraid to venture out,
Remember that all winners were
At one time filled with doubt.

A step or two and words of praise,
Can make your dreams come true.
Greet your future with a smile,
Success is there for you!

Author Unknown

And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.

Psalm 9:10

Everyone Has An Invisible Sign Hanging From His Neck

Saying, "Make me feel important!"

It isn't enough to say in our hearts

That we like a man for his ways,

It isn't enough that we fill our minds

With paeans of silent praise;

Nor is it enough that we honor a man

As our confidence upward mounts,

It's going right up to the man himself,

And telling him so that counts!

If a man does a work you really admire,

Don't leave a kind word unsaid,

In fear that to do so might make him vain

And cause him to "lose his head."

But reach out your hand and tell him,

"Well done," and see how his gratitude swells;

It isn't the flowers we strew on the grave,

It's the work to the living that tells.

Anonymous

For lack of praise, many think others draw negative conclusions about them.  We can actually wound people by withholding our praise.  Let someone know you think well of him or her today.  What a difference your words will make!

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:11

The Old Dented Bucket

My aunt forwarded this email to me the other day.  There is a wonderful lesson to be learned from this story, and how true it is..  

THE OLD DENTED BUCKET

   Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore .  We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out-patients at the clinic.
    One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door.
I opened it to see a truly awful looking man.  "Why, he's hardly taller than my 8-year-old," I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body.
But the appalling thing was his face, lopsided from swelling, red and raw.
    Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, "Good evening.  I've come to see if you've a room for just one night.  I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus 'til morning."
    He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room.  "I guess it's my face .... I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments .."
    For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: "I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch.  My bus leaves early in the morning."
    I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch..  I went inside and finished getting supper.  When we were ready, I asked the old  man if he would join us.  "No, thank you.  I have plenty."  And he held up a brown paper bag.
    When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with  him a few minutes.  It didn't take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body.  He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her 5 children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.
    He didn't tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was preface with a thanks to God for a blessing.  He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer.  He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going...
    At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children's room for him.  When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch.
    He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, "Could  I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment?  I won't put you out a bit.  I can sleep fine in a chair."  He paused a moment and then added, "Your children made me feel at home.  Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don't seem to mind."
I told him he was welcome to come again.
And, on his next trip, he arrived a little after 7 in the morning.  As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen!  He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh.  I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. And I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.
    In the years he came to stay overnight with us, there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden.
    Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed.  Knowing that he must walk 3 miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious.
    When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a  comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning.
    "Did you keep that awful looking man last night?  I turned him away!
  You can lose roomers by putting up such people!"
    Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice.  But, oh!, if only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear.
    I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.
    Recently I was visiting a friend, who has a greenhouse, as she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms.  But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket.  I thought to myself, "If this were my plant, I'd put it in the loveliest container I had!"
    My friend changed my mind.  "I ran short of pots," she explained, "and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn't mind starting out in this old pail.  It's just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden."
    She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was  imagining just such a scene in heaven.
    "Here's an especially beautiful one," God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman.  "He won't mind starting in this small body."
    All this happened long ago - and now, in God's garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand.
    The LORD does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7b)
    Friends are very special.  They make you smile and encourage you to succeed.  They lend an ear and they share a word of praise.  Show your friends how much you care.  Pass this on, and brighten someone's day.
    Nothing will happen if you do not decide to pass it along.  The only thing that will happen if you DO pass it on is that someone might smile  (because of you).