The Art of Giving, Not Keeping...

Easy, bro's!

I've just read this today on @Chuck Swindoll's daily devotional email and it moved me, it inspired me so much in fact that I want each and every one of you to benefit from this...

Early one chilly morning an American soldier was making his way back to the barracks in London. As he turned the corner in his jeep, he spotted a little lad with his nose pressed to the window of a pastry shop. Inside, the cook was kneading dough for a fresh batch of doughnuts. The hungry boy stared in silence, watching every move. The soldier pulled his jeep to the curb, stopped, got out, and walked quietly over to where the little fellow was standing. Through the steamed-up window, he could see the mouth-watering morsels being pulled from the oven, piping hot. The boy salivated and released a slight groan as he watched the cook place them onto the glass-enclosed counter ever so carefully.

The soldier's heart went out to the nameless orphan as he stood beside him.

"Son . . . would you like some of those?"The boy was startled, "Oh, yeah . . . I would!"

The American stepped inside and bought a dozen, put them in a bag, and walked back to where the lad was standing in the foggy cold of the London morning. The soldier smiled, held out the bag, and said simply: "Here you are."

As he turned to walk away, he felt a tug on his coat.

He looked back and heard the child ask quietly: "Mister . . . are you God ?"

As we often think we've got it oh so bad, chances are that if you look closely and without taint of your own personal bias, then it's not really that bad, not when there are children & families out there starving their way through this time of austerity.

You have the chance to be just a little bit helpful to someone, and for some of them that might be the "one day" experience they need that forever changes their life, or alters their destiny. You know? The point where they say "I was living EVERY DAY as though it was never going to get better than this and then ONE DAY the most remarkable thing happened...".

So next time you're tempted to blame your circumstances or someone else for you living in the state that you are in, remember the buck stops with you; you don't have to let people's opinions of you cloud your own judgement, you don't have to settle for second best when you can be living for the extraordinary things in life!

Peace out!

S.R. Cook

P.S. - If you wanna know more the quote's taken from his book "Improving Your Serve: The Art of Unselfish Living" available here.