April 2012
11 posts
By His Stripes We Are Healed
A father had a young son who was constantly in trouble so one day, the father went upstairs to find his son getting into things that he was told not to mess with. When the boy saw his father, he instantly knew that he was in trouble. Slowly the father took off his belt. He took his shirt off and then asks the boy to give him 10 lashes with the belt. The boy started crying and said he couldn’t do...
Forget About it
Do you ever kick yourself for your past mistakes? We do. We try not to do it because it is unproductive, but it remains a temptation when we make a blunder that we thought we had learned not to make. Evidently we are not alone because other people tell us they do the same thing. What is it about us and our inability to let the past be the past? Of course we need to learn from our mistakes, but...
Saving a Life
There’s a story from many years ago of a primary school teacher. Her name was Mrs. Thompson and as she stood in front of her fifth grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children a lie. Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said she loved them all the same.
But that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy...
March 2012
3 posts
The Piano Prodigy
During those years I found that children have many levels of musical ability, and even though I have never had the pleasure of having a prodigy, I have taught some very talented students.
However, I have also had my share of what I call ‘musically challenged’ pupils – one such pupil being Robby…
Robby was 11 years old when his mother (a single mom) dropped him off for his first piano lesson. I...
The Empty Chair
A man’s daughter had asked the local pastor to come and pray with her father. When the pastor arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows and an empty chair beside his bed. The priest assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit. “I guess you were expecting me,” he said.
“No, who are you?”
“I’m the new associate at your local church,” the pastor...
The Sands of Forgiveness
A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face.
The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand:
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.
They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had...
February 2012
2 posts
Big, grateful hearts come in small packages
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 eight-year-old,” I thought as I stared at the stooped,...
