Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 15 – No. 1513 April 13, 2013
Thought for the week: "I will prepare, and someday my chance will come." – Abraham Lincoln
Dr. Benjamin Porter visited the school yesterday and lectured on "Destructive Pests." A large number were present.
The sewer expansion project is nearing completion but City officials are holding their breath until it is officially finished.
The ladies of the County Medical Society Auxiliary plan to publish a cookbook. Part of the money will go to the Samaritan Hospital to purchase a stomach pump.
Columbia, Tennessee, which calls itself the largest outdoor mule market in the world, held a mule parade yesterday headed by the Governor.
The Attorney General's office said yesterday that an autopsy performed on the headless body of a man found in Mason failed to determine the cause of death.
Weather: Sunny with a few cloudy periods today and Thursday, which will be followed by Friday.
Conventional wisdom tells us that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount." However, in institutionalized organizations scientifically advanced strategies are often employed by doing the following:
Buying a stronger whip;
Changing riders;
Appointing a committee to see how other cultures ride dead horses;
Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included
Reclassifying the dead horse as "living impaired";
Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse;
Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed;
Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.
Did you hear about the teacher who was helping one of her kindergarten students put his boots on? He asked for help and she could see why. With her pulling and him pushing, the boots still didn't want to go on. When the second boot was on, she had worked up a sweat. She almost whimpered when the little boy said, "Teacher, they're on the wrong feet." She looked and, sure enough, they were.
It wasn't any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on. She managed to keep her cool as together they worked to get the boots back on—this time on the right feet. He then announced, "These aren't my boots."
She bit her tongue rather than get right in his face and scream, "Why didn't you say so?" like she wanted to. Once again, she struggled to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off. He then said, "They're my brother's boots. My Mom made me wear them."
She didn't know if she should laugh or cry. She mustered up the grace to wrestle the boots on his feet again. She said, "Now, where are your mittens?" He said, "I stuffed them in the toes of my boots."
Dr. David Jeremiah tells about a suburban neighborhood in which several residents were extremely upset at the reckless and fast driving that was occurring in their quiet subdivision. They organized a petition drive and demanded that the police patrol the area with greater frequency and penalize drivers who ignored the speed limits. The police obliged and immediately ticketed five drivers who ignored the speed limits. All of them were fuming at the fines they received. It seems, however, that all five of these ticketed drivers had signed the petition calling for enforcement. We hate sin, don't we? At least other people's!
By Michael Josephson of Character Counts (794.1)
A young mother was fascinated but concerned as she watched a butterfly struggling mightily to escape through the small opening at the top of its cocoon. And when the creature seemed to give up overwhelmed by the task, she felt sure that it wouldn't make it without help. So she enlarged the hole.
The grateful butterfly wriggled out. Unfortunately, its wings were shriveled and useless. The well-intentioned intervention interrupted a natural process. Forcing the butterfly to squeeze though a small opening is nature's way of assuring that blood from the creature's body is pushed into the wings. The butterfly escaped the cocoon, but without strong wings, it could never be free.
Childhood, too, is a sort of cocoon. If a healthy adult is to emerge, there must be some struggle.
One of the hardest things for loving parents is to know when to let kids work their own way out of the rough patches in life. Of course we should always be supportive and demonstrate caring, and we should look for opportunities to give them strategies and tools to deal with their problems. But if we are overprotective, they will not struggle enough, and without some struggle, they may not develop the strength and confidence they will someday need.
Children must be allowed to learn from their mistakes and pay the price for their own bad judgments. Parents who buy their kids everything they want and always bail them out of trouble do them no favors. In fact, they may be preventing them from growing the strong wings they need.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"Why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, 'Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye?"1
You may have read about the young couple who moved into a new neighborhood and, the next morning while they were eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging washed clothes on the clothesline.
"That laundry is not very clean," she said, "she doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap."
Her husband looked on, but remained silent. However, every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.
About a month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice, clean wash on the line and said to her husband: "Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her how."
The husband said, "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows."
And so it is with life: what we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look. The reality is that we see things not the way they are, but the way we are. Furthermore, to the degree that we are in denial, we will see only what we want to see; will hear only what we want to hear; will expose ourselves only to what we want to be exposed to, and will twist what we see to make it match our distorted perception of reality. Only the truth—brutal self-honesty—will set us free from this self-deception.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please confront me with the truth about me so that I will see myself exactly the way you see me. Please reveal to me any log in my eye that causes me to have distorted vision. Help me to become like Jesus—real and authentic. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."
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