Smile

A little girl walked to and from school daily.                                                                        
Though the weather that morning was questionable and clouds were forming, she made her daily trek to the   elementary school.                                                                                                               
As the afternoon progressed, the winds whipped up, along with thunder and lightning.                                   
The mother of the little girl felt concerned that her daughter would be frightened as she walked home from   school and she herself feared that the electrical storm might harm her child.                                                    
Following the roar of thunder, lightning, like a flaming word, would cut through the sky full of concern; the mother quickly got into her car and drove along the route to her child's school.                                             
 As she did so, she saw her little girl walking along, but at each flash of lightning, the child would stop, look up   
and smile.

Another and another were to follow quickly and with each, the little girl would look at the streak of light and smile.

When the mother's car drove up beside the child, she lowered the window and called to her, "What are you  doing? Why do you keep stopping?" The child answered, "I am trying to look pretty, God keeps taking my picture."                     
                                                                                                                     
Face the storms that come your way and don't forget to smile!

The Given Light

Once upon a time a man had heard, that in a foreign place, far away, there was a holy flame burning. So he got up and left his home to find the holy flame and bring some of its light back home to his house. He thought: 'When I have this light, then I will have happiness and life and all the people I love will have it too.'

He traveled far, far away and finally found the holy flame, with which he lit his light. On his way back he had only one worry: 'That his light could go out.'

On his way home he met someone who was freezing and didn't have any fire and who begged him to give him some of his fire. The man with the light hesitated for a moment. Wasn't his light too precious, too holy to be given away for something ordinary like that? Despite these doubts, he decided to give some of his light to the one who was freezing in the darkness.

The man continued his journey home and when he had almost reached his house a terrible thunderstorm started. He tried to protect his light from the rain and the storm, but at the end his light went out.

To return the long way back to the place where the holy flame was burning was impossible, he wouldn't have had enough strength to go back this far - but he was strong enough to return to the human being whom he had helped on his way home.

.........and with his light he could light his own again.

Being Polite

I walked with a friend to the newsstand the other night, and he bought a paper, thanking the owner politely. The owner, however, did not even acknowledge it. "A sullen fellow, isn't he?" I commented as we walked away. "Oh, he's that way every night," shrugged my friend. "Then why do you continue being so polite to him?" I asked. And my friend replied, "Why should I let him determine how I'm going to act?"

The Frogs

A farmer came into town and asked the owner of a restaurant if he could sell him a million frog legs.

The restaurant owner was shocked and asked the man where he could get so many frog legs! The farmer replied, "There is a pond near my house that is full of frogs - millions of them. They all croak all night long and they are about to make me crazy!"

So the restaurant owner and the farmer made an agreement that the farmer would deliver frogs to the restaurant, five hundred at a time for the next several weeks.

The first week, the farmer returned to the restaurant looking rather sheepish, with two scrawny little frogs. The restaurant owner said, "Well... where are all the frogs?"

The farmer said, "I was mistaken. There were only these two frogs in the pond. But they sure were making a lot of noise!"

Next time you hear somebody criticizing or making fun of you, remember, it's probably just a couple of noisy frogs.

Problems always seem bigger in the dark. Have you ever laid in your bed at night worrying about things which seem almost overwhelming like a million frogs croaking? Chances are pretty good that when the morning comes, and you take a closer look, you'll wonder what all the fuss was about.