Your Relationships

Why Your Failure Doesn't Have to be Final - #4834

Thursday, July 21, 2005

We're not horse racing fans, but I happened to stumble onto a horse race on TV when I was looking for the evening news. It was The Preakness; the second race in a three-race series called the Triple Crown. Those races are, in essence, horse racing's World Series. The first race in 2005 had been won by a horse whose odds of winning were 50 to 1, beating out the odds-on favorite, Afleet Alex. Then came that second race, The Preakness. As the race passed the halfway point, Afleet Alex made his move. He quickly caught up with another horse who had been in the lead - who, for some reason, swerved unexpectedly right into his path, and both horses started to collide and stumble. Afleet Alex's jockey ended up hanging onto his horse's neck, fully expecting to go down in a potentially deadly fall that could all be trampled. But amazingly, Afleet Alex somehow managed to regain his balance, surge into the lead, and win the race in a dramatic finish. The headline the next day said it all: "From stumble to stunning finish."

Homeland Security for Your Home - #4815

Friday, June 24, 2005

The Department of Homeland Security is a relatively new idea in America; a government body that coordinates our efforts to keep our country safe from forces that could hurt us. But "homeland security" is hardly a new idea. It's been the job of every parent since children were invented - the sacred assignment of guarding our family from the things that could hurt them. That job has never been more difficult.

The Ear Before the Mouth - #4812

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

We've got a family doctor that I just totally trust. I'm a blessed guy, but I can't say that I look for opportunities to go see him, of course. But if I do have to go, I have a lot of reasons to trust him - not the least of which is, he asks me about my symptoms. So, I give him all the clues I can. I tell him where it hurts, when it started, how I got desperate enough to finally come to a doctor's office. Then he investigates my temperature and checks out my vital signs. And I'm glad. Can you imagine if he walked into the room where I was waiting for him and before I could even open my mouth, he pointed at me and barked, "Penicillin!" What? He's already headed for me with that needle, and I haven't even had a chance to tell him what's wrong. Do you think I'd trust his diagnosis? Do you think I'd go there the next time I needed attention?

The Power of a Satisfied Customer - #4802

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

Some friends of ours have struggled with a wide variety of health issues over the past several years. Not long ago, a trusted friend told them about a juice taken from a rare fruit that seems to have measurably improved her health, and the health of several people she loves. Our friends invested in that juice, and they like the early results. I can just imagine what would have happened, though, if some telemarketer had called them cold and tried to sell this product to them. Click. I know these people. They never would have bought it from some professional salesman. But it helped when someone like them, and someone they knew and trusted was the one to tell them about it. They wanted what she believed in and what was changing her.

The High Price of Brake Failure - #4798

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Our friends, Dan and Ellen, live in this beautiful farmhouse that became a little less beautiful lately. They'd been doing some heavy outdoor work and they were using a big old dump truck. Now, Ellen's a city girl who's lived on a farm for so many years that there isn't much she can't do - including driving a dump truck! Well, this particular night she had just started it up when she had to run in the house for something, maybe a phone call, and then she left it running for just a minute. I guess it was more minutes inside than she had anticipated. You know how phone calls are. Something happened as the air pressure built up in the truck's air brakes and they somehow released! Yeah, that big old dump truck started rolling until something stopped it - Dan and Ellen's dining room and kitchen! That truck plowed right through their dining room wall. The brakes on their vehicle failed and the result was major damage to their home!

The Liar and the Fire - #4752

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

My wife and I like Mexican food. Actually, I just like food, but she likes Mexican food much hotter than I do. She likes the salsa, the hot sauce - the really hot stuff. I like wimp sauce on mine actually. But not even she can handle what our friend from Mexico goes for. He doesn't just like hot sauce on his food. He likes molten lava. Even the candy he eats has chilies in it. It brings tears to our eyes, but he pops it like we do M&M's. Recently, he told me about a Mexican pepper that he had never tasted before. Some friends recommended it to him. He took a big bite out of it and really enjoyed it. It wasn't hot, it was actually mild. He enjoyed it so much, he ate some more. No fire, no burn, just a nice taste experience - until a few minutes later. Here's how he told it - "Suddenly, my mouth burst into flames!" Now, when he thinks something's hot, it's on fire, man! But there was no hint of the fire when he was biting into it. I loved what he named this particular pepper. He calls it "The Liar."

You Leave or You Lose - #4735

Friday, March 4, 2005

We just had the wonderful joy of a visit from our son, his wonderful wife and our awesome little granddaughter. She's two, but I think she has the vocabulary of a five-year-old. Besides being unexplainably beautiful (being my granddaughter, that is), she really knows how to communicate - with words, with gestures, facial expressions. We love our time with her, and she seems to love her time with us. But this isn't home. They live many miles from here. She needs to be home ultimately, sleeping in her bed, playing with her toys, being around the people she loves there, and enjoying her personal world. This is where she visits. That's where she lives. She was in the car with Mommy and Daddy, all strapped in her toddler seat and ready to pull out of the driveway to head home. But, oh how she cried! She begged me to get in. She begged me to sit down. Her crying broke a grandparent's heart. But she's home now, and she's loving being where she lives. It's just that leaving is so hard.

Laser Living - #4721

Monday, February 14, 2005

We were nearly three thousand miles from home when my wife was hit by this agonizing attack of gallstones. The situation was so acute that we had to get her to a hospital where it was quickly determined that she would need surgery to remove the stones. From what we understood, it could take six weeks for her to be able to travel back after the operation. Back home a cure would have meant this invasive incision. But God, of course, had this planned all the time. The hospital friends directed us to just happened to have on its staff one of the premier laser surgeons in the country. He zapped those gallstones with a laser beam and they were history. My honey was good to go in two days! Last week, a friend of ours lost his glasses - for good. He had a laser procedure on his eyes, and almost immediately his vision deficiencies have been corrected, and who needs glasses! Gallstones gone, vision corrected - with the power of a laser - with the power of focused light.

How to Hold Your Child - #4705

Friday, January 21, 2005

It's an old Asian parable with a lot of "right now" wisdom. A little boy had been trying for many days to capture one of the little birds that snacked in the family fields. He had tried over and over again to hide in the bushes and surprise one of those birds enough to get his hands on it. Finally, after many failed attempts, he captured his prize. And he couldn't wait to show his mommy. He wrapped his hands around that little bird and he ran all the way to his house. As soon as the little guy saw his mother, he proudly extended his cupped hands and said, "Mommy, I got a bird! He's really cute!" But his joy didn't last long. As he slowly opened his hands for his mother to see, he noticed the bird wasn't moving - or breathing. It was one heartbroken boy who cried, "Mommy, I was afraid I'd lose him. But I held him so tight, I crushed him."

Premature Funerals - #4689

Thursday, December 30, 2004

The funeral plans for Matt were in the works. The Park Service had announced that Matt was one of five people who had been killed in a plane crash on a mountainside in Montana. The funeral never happened. Suddenly, Matt's bereaved parents heard the stunning news: although he had been badly injured, their son, along with one other Forest Service worker, had just been rescued alive, miles from the crash site. Rescue workers at the scene of the crash had concluded that the charred wreckage and the scattered human remains indicated that the crash had been "insurvivable," they said. But amazingly, Matt and his fellow worker hiked for 29 hours, often in subfreezing temperatures, until they reached a highway where a motorist picked them up. One news magazine called it, "A Miracle in the Snows of Montana" (Newsweek, October 4, 2004).

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