What goes around comes around

Anonymous
The man slowly looked up. This was a woman clearly accustomed to the finer things of life. Her coat was new. She looked like she had never missed a meal in her life. His first thought was that she wanted to make fun of him, like so many others had done before.
“Leave me alone,” he growled..
To his amazement, the woman continued standing. She was smiling — her even white teeth displayed in dazzling rows.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“No,” he answered sarcastically. “I’ve just come from dining with the president. Now go away.”
The woman’s smile became even  broader. Suddenly the man felt a gentle hand under his arm.
“What are you doing, lady?” the man asked angrily. “I said to leave me alone.”
Just then a policeman came up. “Is there any problem, ma’am?” he asked.
“No problem here, officer,” the woman answered. “I’m just trying to get this man to his feet. Will you help me?”
The officer scratched his head.  “That’s old Jack. He’s been a fixture around here for a couple of years. What do you want with him?”
“See that cafeteria over there?” she asked. “I’m going to get him something to eat and get him out of the cold for awhile.”
“Are you crazy, lady?” the homeless man resisted. “I don’t want to go in there!”
Then he felt strong hands grab his other arm and lift him up.  “Let me go, officer. I didn’t do anything.”
“This is a good deal for you, Jack,” the officer answered. “Don’t blow it..”
Finally, and with some difficulty, the woman and the police officer got Jack into the cafeteria and sat him at a table in a remote corner. It was the middle  of the morning, so most of the breakfast crowd had already left and  the lunch bunch had not yet arrived. The manager strode across the cafeteria and stood by his table.
“What’s going on here, officer?” he asked. “What is all this? Is this man in trouble?”
“This lady brought this man in here to be fed,” the policeman answered.
“Not in here!” the manager replied angrily. “Having a person like that here is bad for business.”
Old Jack smiled a toothless grin. “See, lady. I told you so. Now if  you’ll let me go. I didn’t want to come here in the first place.”
The woman  turned to the cafeteria manager and smiled. “Sir, are you familiar with Eddy and Associates, the banking firm down the street?”
“Of course I am,” the manager answered impatiently. “They hold their weekly meetings in one of my banquet rooms.”
“And do you make a goodly amount of money providing food at these weekly meetings?”
“What business is that of yours?”
I, sir, am Penelope Eddy, president and CEO of the company.”
“Oh.”
The woman smiled again.
“I thought that might make a difference.”
She  glanced at the cop who was busy stifling a giggle. “Would you like to  join us in a cup of coffee and a meal, officer?”
“No thanks, ma’am,” the officer replied. “I’m on duty.”
“Then, perhaps, a cup of coffee to go?”
“Yes, ma’am. That would be very nice.”
The cafeteria manager turned on his heel,  “I’ll get your coffee for you right away, officer.”
The officer watched  him walk away. “You certainly put him in his place,” he said.
“That was not my intent. Believe it or not, I have a reason for all this.”
She sat down at the table across from her amazed dinner guest. She stared at him intently
“Jack, do you remember me?”
Old Jack searched her face with his old, rheumy eyes.
“I think so — I mean you do look familiar.”
“I’m a little older perhaps,” she said. “Maybe I’ve even filled out more than in my younger days when you worked here, and I came through that very door, cold and hungry.”
“Ma’am?” the officer said questioningly.  He couldn’t believe that such a magnificently turned out woman could ever have been hungry.
“I was just out of college,” the woman began. “I had  come to the city looking for a job, but I couldn’t find anything. Finally I was down to my last few cents and had been kicked out of my apartment. I walked the streets for days. It was February and I was cold and nearly starving. I saw this place and walked in on the off chance that I could get something to eat.”
Jack lit up with a smile.
“Now I remember,” he said. “I was behind the serving counter. You came up and asked me if you could work for something to eat. I said that it was against  company policy.”
“I know,” the woman continued. “Then you made me the biggest roast beef sandwich that I had ever seen, gave me a cup of coffee, and told me to go over to a corner table and enjoy  it. I was afraid that you would get into trouble. Then, when I looked  over, I saw you put the price of my food in the cash register I knew then that everything would be all right.”
“So you started your own business?” Old Jack asked.
“I got a job that very afternoon. I worked my way up. Eventually, I started my own business, that, with the help of God, prospered.”
She opened her purse and pulled out a business card.
“When you are finished here, I want you to pay a visit to a Mr. Lyons. He’s the personnel director of my company. I’ll go talk to him now and I’m certain he’ll find something for you to do around the office.”
She smiled.
“I think he might even find the funds to give you a little advance so that you can buy some clothes and get a place to live until you get on your feet. If you ever need anything, my door is always opened  to you.”
There were tears in the old man’s eyes.
“How can I ever thank  you? “ he said.
“Don’t thank me,” the woman answered. “To God goes the glory. Thank Jesus… He led me to you.”
Outside the cafeteria, the officer and the woman paused at the entrance before going their separate ways.
“Thank  you for all your help, officer,” she said.
“On the contrary, Ms. Eddy,” he answered.
“Thank you. I saw a miracle today, something  that I will never forget. And…And thank you for the coffee.”
Have a Wonderful Day. May God Bless You Always. And don’t forget that when you “cast your bread upon the waters,” you never know how it will be returned to you.
The Golden Rule lives still today.

Have faith in yourself, a positive outlook

Want to live a longer, healthier and more successful life? An optimistic outlook can help you achieve all three.
Researchers at Yale University say people who think positively live 7.5 years longer than those who don’t. The effect was more important than lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
An optimistic outlook is not something you are born with. It’s a character trait that can be achieved.
If your outlook is generally gloomy, changing it to positive isn’t easy. It takes work and repetition. When you are aware of your feelings, decide to be positive instead of negative. It might feel as if you are faking optimism, but after a while the optimism will be real.
Motivational author Charles Kovess says it’s important to remember that you are bound to meet negative people. Don’t let them throw you off course. He recommends being grateful for all experiences because we grow stronger by getting through the negatives.
Our actions are the results of our beliefs. If we have positive beliefs, we will take positive actions.
In his ground breaking book, The Power of Positive Thinking, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale says: “Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.”

A Glass of Milk

Author Unknown
One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water.
She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?”
“You don’t owe me anything,” she replied. “Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness.”
He said….. “Then I thank you from my heart.” As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strong also as he had been ready to give up and quit.
Year’s later that young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room.
Dressed in his doctor’s gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to the case.
After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval.
He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill.
She read these words…..
“Paid in full with one glass of milk”
(Signed)
Dr. Howard Kelly.

A Christmas Story of the White Envelopes

It’s just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so.
It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas—oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it-overspending…the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma—the gifts given in desperation because you couldn’t think of anything else.
Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way.
Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended; and shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church, mostly black.
These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes.
As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler’s ears.
It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn’t acknowledge defeat.
Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, “I wish just one of them could have won,” he said. “They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them.”
Mike loved kids-all kids-and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball and lacrosse. That’s when the idea for his present came.
That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church.
On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me.
His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years.
For each Christmas, I followed the tradition—one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on.
The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal it’s contents.
As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn’t end there.
You see, we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning, it was joined by three more. Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad.
The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope. Mike’s spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us.
May we all remember each other, and the Real reason for the season, and His true spirit this year and always. God bless—pass this along to your friends and loved ones.
— Copyright © 1982 Nancy W. Gavin
The story first appeared in Woman’s Day magazine in 1982. My mom had sent the story in as a contest entry in which she subsequently won first place. Unfortunately, she passed away from cancer two years after the story was published. Our family still keeps the tradition started by her and my father and we have passed it on to our children. Feel free to use the story. It gives me and my sisters great joy to know that it lives on and has hopefully inspired others to reach out in a way that truly honors the spirit of Christmas. — Kevin Gavin