The Most Caring Child

"Love is everything. It is the key to life,
and its influences are those that move the world." –Ralph
Waldo Trine

Author and lecturer Leo once talked about a contest
he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find
the most caring child. The winner was a four-year-old child whose
next-door neighbour was an elderly gentleman who had recently
lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into
the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap,
and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said
to the neighbour, the little boy said, "Nothing,
I just helped him cry."

The Gift

Bennet Cerf relates this touching story about a bus
that was bumping along a back road in the
South.

In one seat a wispy old man sat holding a bunch of
fresh flowers. Across the aisle was a young
girl whose eyes came back again and again to the man’s flowers.
The time came for the old man to get off. Impulsively
he thrust the flowers into the girl’s lap. "I can see you
love the flowers," he explained, "and I think my wife
would like for you to have them. I’ll tell her I gave them to
you." The girl accepted the flowers,
then watched the old man get off the bus and walk through the
gate of a small cemetery.

Two Brothers

"For it is in giving that we receive. –Saint
Francis of Assisi

Two brothers worked together on the family farm.
One was married and had a large family. The
other was single. At the day’s end, the brothers shared
everything equally, produce and profit. Then one day the single
brother said to himself, "It’s not right that
we should share equally the produce and the
profit. I’m alone and my needs are simple." So each
night he took a sack of grain from his bin and crept
across the field between their houses, dumping
it into his brother’s bin.

Meanwhile, the married brother said to himself, "Its
not right that we should share the produce
and the profit equally. After all, I’m married and
I have my wife and my children to look after me in years to come.
My brother has no one, and no one to take
care of his future." So each nite, he
took a sack of grain and dumped it into his single brother’s
bin.

Both men were puzzled for years because their supply
of grain never dwindled. Then one dark nite
the two brothers bumped into each other. Slowly
it dawned on them what was happening. They dropped their sacks
and embraced one another.

"Life in abundance comes only through great
love. –Elbert Hubbard