You Can Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later

A little girl became restless as the preacher’s sermon dragged on and on.

Finally, she leaned over to her mother and whispered, “Mommy, if we give him the money now, will he let us go?”

 

Time and Again

After a worship service, a mother with a fidgety seven-year old boy told me how she finally got her son to sit still and be quiet.

About halfway through the sermon, she leaned over and whispered, “If you don’t be quiet, Pastor is going to lose his place and will have to start his sermon all over again!”

It worked.

Homeless

After the christening of his baby brother in church, little Johnny sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car.

His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, “That Pastor said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I want to stay with you guys!”

 

Offering Discount

A little child in church for the first time watched as the ushers passed the offering plates.

When they neared the pew where he sat, the youngster piped up so that everyone could hear: “Don’t pay for me Daddy, I’m under five.”

 

Truth That Didn’t Hurt

While leading a tour of kindergarten students through our hospital, I overheard a conversation between one little girl and an x-ray technician.

“Have you ever broken a bone?” he asked.

“Yes,” the girl replied.

“Did it hurt?”

“No.”

“Really? Which bone did you break?”

“My sister’s arm.”

 

Blowing It

I’m a middle school band teacher, and I match students to instruments by testing them on various mouthpieces. While most children demonstrate aptitude on more than a single instrument, there was one boy who was having difficulty on every one he tried, and he was becoming disheartened.

Finally, he found success on a tuba mouthpiece. He was so happy that he asked to call his mother.

“Mom, guess what!” I overheard him exclaim. “I tested positive for tuba!”

 

Progress

A little girl was sitting on her grandfather’s lap as he read her a bedtime
story. From time to time, she would take her eyes off the book and reach up
to touch his wrinkled cheek. She was alternately stroking her own cheek,
then his again. Finally she spoke up, “Grandpa, did God make you?”

“Yes, sweetheart,” he answered, “God made me a long time ago.”

“Oh,” she paused, “Grandpa, did God make me too?”

“Yes, indeed, honey,” he said, “God made you just a little while ago.”

Feeling their respective faces again, she observed, “God’s getting better at
it, isn’t he?”

You Know You Need A New Lawyer When

– Just before he says “Your Honor,” he makes those little quotation marks in the air with his fingers.

– He giggles every time he hears the word “briefs.”

– He keeps citing the legal case of Godzilla v. Mothra.

Sole-Heir System

The New York Times, among other papers, recently published a new Hubble Space Telescope photograph of distant galaxies colliding.

Of course, astronomers have had pictures of colliding galaxies for quite some time now, but with the vastly improved resolution provided by the Hubble Space Telescope, you can actually see the lawyers rushing to the scene.

 

To err is human, to forgive is divine,
to moo is bovine,
to bleat is ovine,
to oink is porcine,
to howl is lupine,
to bark is canine,
to purr is feline.
This list is asinine.

 

Choices

John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!” He was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

He replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life! I choose the positive side of life.”

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.

“Yes, it is,” he said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life.”

I reflected on what he said. Soon thereafter, I left the company we worked at to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I happened to run into him about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

“The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter,” he replied. “Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

“Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked.

He continued, “..the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read ‘he’s a dead man.’ I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said John. “She asked if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Gravity!'”

Over their laughter, I told them, “I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34).