The First Step

“Where have you been?” a neighbour named Stacy said.

“Where have you been?” my neighbour, Robert, asked.

I was riding my three-wheeler bike down our road. The bike is made specifically for people like me who are disabled. “Well,” I said to the dozen or so neighbourhood folks who asked me the same question. “I took time off to be depressed.”

I was on my trike that day because of a breakthrough. I can still visualize myself on a recent afternoon when I debated about opening our front door and re-entering the outside world. The breakthrough occurred because of this thought: “If I keep waiting until I want to do something, I’ll be waiting forever.”

Oddly, this new way of thinking began because of a 21-year-old movie I watched called, “City Slickers.” Mitch, played by Billy Crystal, is dreadfully depressed as he takes us through his comical mid-life funk.

During his journey of recovery, he was taught “the secret of life.” But here’s the thing: Finding that secret could never have happened until Mitch stopped waiting for happiness to come to him and instead took the first step himself.

First steps, I have learned, are nowhere near as huge as they sound. They’re actually quite simple. They have to be.

My husband, Bob, heard me crying when the movie ended. “I thought it was a comedy,” he said.

“It was hysterical.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“Because it made me realize I’ve wasted six months of my life by settling into depression and waiting, waiting, waiting to come out of it.”

That was the instant I took that first step. I grabbed my cane and said, “I’m going to ride my trike.”

He tried to stop me. “You can hardly move today. And you haven’t been on your trike for ages!”

“Bob, if I don’t do this now, I am never going to do it.” I knew that. I knew that from the depths of me. I had to do something to help myself.

And it had to be now.

Now, I’d have never done this had I thought, “I’m going to grab my cane, get my sturdy shoes, find the bike lock, check the weather,” and on and on, ending with something overwhelmingly sabotaging like, “and ride every day for the rest of my entire life.”

I biked down our road, loving every minute. It’s a new year, a new me, a new life and all because of one simple decision.

And so, the secret of life that Mitch learned?

To paraphrase from the movie: “Just one thing,” Curly, the wise cowboy said. “You stick to that and the rest is foolish detail.”

“What is that one thing?”

“That’s what you have to find out for yourself.”

For Mitch, it was not about taking an adventurous trip out West; it was merely agreeing to read the brochure.

For Mitch’s wife, it was just saying these words to him: “I want you to have that adventure and find … your smile.”

It was when Mitch realized by simply giving his wife one single kiss: “Today is my very best day!”

And for me, it was grabbing my old wooden walking stick.

Who Started This Christmas Stuff?

A woman was out Christmas shopping with her two children. After many hours of looking at row after row of toys and everything else imaginable; and after hours of hearing both her children asking for everything they saw on those many shelves, she finally made it to the lift with her two kids.

She was feeling what so many feel during the holiday season time of the year — overwhelming pressure to go to every party, every house-warming, taste all the holiday food and treats, getting that perfect gift for every single person on our shopping list, making sure we don’t forget anyone on our card list, and the pressure of making sure we respond to everyone who sent us a card.

Finally the lift doors opened, and there was already a crowd in it. She pushed her way into the lift and dragged her two children in with her and all the bags of stuff. When the doors closed, she couldn’t take it any more and she stated, “Whoever started this whole Christmas thing should be found, strung up and shot.”

From the back of the lift, everyone heard a quiet, calm voice respond, “Don’t worry, we already crucified Him.”

For the rest of the trip down in the lift, it was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

This year, don’t forget to keep “the One who started this whole Christmas thing” in your every thought, deed and words. If we all did it, just think of how different this whole world would be.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).

The Pig and The Cow

“Why is it,” said the rich man to his minister, “that people call me stingy when everyone knows that when I die I’m leaving everything to the church?”

“Let me tell you a fable about the pig and the cow,” said the minister.

“The pig was unpopular while the cow was beloved. This puzzled the pig.

‘People speak warmly of your gentle nature and your sorrowful eyes,’ the pig said to the cow. ‘They think you’re generous because each day you give them milk and cream. But what about me? I give them everything I have. I give bacon and ham. I provide bristles for brushes. They even pickle my feet! Yet no one likes me. Why is that?’”

“Do you know what the cow answered?” said the minister.

“The cow said, ‘Perhaps it is because I give while I’m still living.’”

Too Small to Turn the Door Knob

A Methodist minister tells a pretty story of his little girl, who, wishing to speak to him one day when he was in his study, came up the stairs, and, finding the door closed, put her small hand on the door knob.

The child’s hand was too tiny to grasp the handle firmly enough to turn it. To her delight, however, the handle turned, the door opened, and she ran into the study, exclaiming: ‘Oh, Daddy, I have opened the door all by myself!’

She was all unaware that her father, hearing her trying to open the door, had quietly got up from his chair and turned the handle from the inside.

Thus God helps us when we do our best, and he makes the impossible possible.

No One Is Complete

He wanted to conduct. His conducting style, however, was idiosyncratic. During soft passages he’d crouch extremely low. For loud sections, he’d often leap into the air, even shouting to the orchestra.

His memory was poor. Once he forgot that he had instructed the orchestra not to repeat a section of music. During the performance, when he went back to repeat that section, they went forward, so he stopped the piece, hollering, “Stop! Wrong! That will not do! Again! Again!”

For his own piano concerto, he tried conducting from the piano. At one point he jumped from the bench, bumping the candles off the piano. At another concert he knocked over a choir boy.

During one long, delicate passage, he jumped high to cue a loud entrance, but nothing happened because he had lost count and signaled the orchestra too soon.

As his hearing worsened, musicians tried to ignore his conducting and get their cues from the first violinist.

Finally the musicians pled with him to go home and give up conducting, which he did.

He was Ludwig van Beethoven.

As the man whom many consider to be the greatest composer of all time learned, no one is a genius of all trades.

Are You God’s Wife?

A boy about ten years old was standing in front of a shoe store, barefooted, peering through the window and shivering with cold. A lady approached the boy and said, “My little fellow, why are you looking so earnestly in that window?”

“I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes,” was the boy’s reply.

The lady took him by the hand and went into the store and asked for the shop assistant to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of water and a towel. He quickly brought them to her. She took the young fellow to the back of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his feet and dried them with the towel.

By this time the shop assistant had returned with the socks. Placing a pair upon the boy’s feet, she bought a pair of shoes for him. She packaged the remaining pairs of socks and gave them to him.

She patted him on the head and said, “No doubt, my young fellow, you feel more comfortable now?” As she turned to go, the astonished lad caught her by the hand, and looking up into her face with tears in his eyes, answered her question with these words:

“Are you God’s wife?”

Cure for Sorrow

There is an old Chinese tale about a woman whose only son died. In her grief, she went to the holy man and said, “What prayers, what magical incantations do you have to bring my son back to life?”

Instead of sending her away or reasoning with her, he said to her, “Fetch me a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow. We’ll use it to drive the sorrow out of your life.” The woman went off at once in search of that magical mustard seed.

She came first to a splendid mansion, knocked at the door, and said, “I’m looking for a home that has never known sorrow. Is this such a place? It’s very important to me.”

They told her, “You’ve certainly come to the wrong place,” and began to describe all the tragic things that recently had befallen them.

The woman said to herself, “Who is better able to help these poor, unfortunate, people than I, who have had misfortune of my my own?” She stayed to comfort them, then went on in search of a home that had never known sorrow. But wherever she turned, in hovels and in other places, she found one tale after another of sadness and misfortune. She became so involved in ministering to other people’s grief that ultimately she forgot about her quest for the magical mustard seed, never realizing that it had, in fact, driven the sorrow out of her life.

Smile

The last class I had to take for my college degree was Sociology. The teacher was absolutely inspiring, with the qualities that I wish every human being had been graced with. Her last project of the term was called “Smile.” The class was asked to go out and smile at three people and document their reactions. I am a very friendly person and always smile at everyone anyway, so I thought this would be a piece of cake.

Soon after we were assigned the project, my husband, youngest son, and I went out to a fast food restaurant one crisp March morning. It was just our way of sharing special time together. We were standing in line, waiting to be served, when all of a sudden everyone around us began to back away, and then even my husband did.

I did not move an inch. A feeling of panic welled up inside of me as I turned to see why they had moved. As I turned around, I smelled a horrible “dirty body” smell, and there standing behind me were two poor homeless men.

As I looked down at the short gentleman close to me, he was “smiling.” His beautiful sky-blue eyes were full of God’s Light as he searched for acceptance.

He said, “Good day,” as he counted the few coins he had been clutching. The second man fumbled with his hands as he stood behind his friend. I realized the second man was mentally challenged and the blue-eyed gentleman was his guardian. I held back my tears as I stood there with them. The young lady at the counter asked him what they wanted.

He said, “Coffee is all, Miss,” because that was all they could afford. If they wanted to sit in the restaurant and warm up, they had to buy something. He just wanted to be warm.

Then I really felt it — the compulsion was so great I almost reached out and embraced the little man with the blue eyes. That is when I noticed all eyes in the restaurant were set on me, judging my every action. I smiled and asked the young lady behind the counter to give me two more breakfast meals on a separate tray.

I then walked around the corner to the table that the men had chosen as a resting spot. I put the tray on the table and laid my hand on the blue-eyed gentleman’s cold hand. He looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said, “Thank you.”

I leaned over, began to pat his hand and said, “I did not do this for you. God is here working through me to give you hope.”

I started to cry as I walked away to join my husband and son. When I sat down, my husband smiled at me and said, “That is why God gave you to me, Honey. To give me hope.”

We held hands for a moment and we knew that only because of the Grace that we had been given were we able to give. That day showed me the pure Light of God’s sweet love.

I returned to college on the last evening of class with this story in hand. I turned in my “project” and the instructor read it. Then she looked up at me and said, “Can I share this?” I slowly nodded and she got the attention of the class.

She began to read and that is when I knew that all of us, as human beings and children of God, share this need to heal people and to be healed.

In my own way I had touched the people at the restaurant, my husband, son, instructor, and every soul that shared the classroom on the last night I spent as a college student. I graduated with one of the greatest lessons I would ever learn: unconditional acceptance.

Someone Who Understands

A farmer had some puppies he needed to sell. He painted a sign advertising the pups and set about nailing it to a post on the edge of his yard. As he was driving the last nail into the post, he felt a tug on his overalls.

He looked down into the eyes of a little boy. “Mister,” the lad said, “I want to buy one of your puppies.”

“Well,” said the farmer, as he rubbed the sweat off the back of his neck, “these puppies come from fine parents and cost a good deal of money.”

The boy thought for a moment. Then, reaching deep into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of change and held it up to the farmer. “I’ve got thirty-nine pence. Is that enough to take a look?”

“Sure,” said the farmer. And with that he let out a whistle, “Here, Dolly!” he called.

Out from the doghouse and down the ramp ran Dolly, followed by four little balls of fur. The little boy pressed his face against the chain link fence. His eyes danced with delight.

As the dogs came up to the fence, the little boy noticed something else stirring inside the doghouse. Another little ball appeared; slowly and awkwardly, the little pup began hobbling toward the others, doing its best to catch up.

“I want that one,” the little boy said, pointing to the runt. The farmer knelt down at the boy’s side and said, “Son, you don’t want that puppy. He’ll never be able to run and play with you like these other dogs would.”

At that, the little boy stepped back from the fence, reached down, and began rolling up one leg of his trousers. In doing so he revealed a steel brace running down both sides of his leg, attached to a specially made shoe.

Looking back up at the farmer, he said, “You see, sir, I don’t run too well myself, and he’ll need someone who understands.”

Buying a Diamond

A rich Dutch merchant was seeking to buy a diamond of a certain kind to add to his collection. A famous dealer in New York found such a stone and called him to come and see it. The merchant flew immediately to New York, where the seller had assigned his best diamond expert to close the transaction.

After hearing the assistant describe in perfect technical detail the diamond’s worth and beauty, the Dutchman decided not to buy it.

Before he left, however, the owner of the store stepped forward and asked, “Do you mind if I show you that stone once more?” The customer agreed.

The store owner didn’t repeat one thing that the salesman had said. He simply took the stone in his hand, stared at it, and described the beauty of the stone in a way that revealed why this stone stood out from all the others he had seen in his life. The customer bought it immediately.

Tucking his new purchase into his breast pocket, the customer commented to the owner, “Sir, I wonder why you were able to sell me this stone when your salesman could not?”

The owner replied, “That salesman is the best in the business. He knows more about diamonds than anyone, including myself, and I pay him a large salary for his knowledge and expertise. But I would gladly pay him twice as much if I could put into him something I have which he lacks. You see, he knows diamonds, but I love them.”