Titanic & the ships around.

 There is a theory that there were three ships which were nearby when the Titanic sunk.

One of them was known as the Sampson. It was 7 miles away from the Titanic and they saw the white flares signaling danger, but because the crew had been hunting seals illegally and didn’t want to be caught, they turned and went the opposite direction away from the Titanic. This ship represents people who are so busy looking inward at their own sin and lives that they can’t recognize when someone else is in need.

The next ship was the Californian. This ship was only 14 miles away from the Titanic, but they were surrounded by ice fields and the captain looked out and saw the white flares, but because the conditions weren’t favorable and it was dark, he decided to go back to bed and wait until morning. The crew tried to convince themselves that nothing was happening. This ship represents those of us who say I can’t do anything now. The conditions aren’t right for it and so we wait until conditions are perfect before going out.

The last ship was the Carpathia. This ship was actually headed in a southern direction 58 miles away from the Titanic when they heard the distress cries over the radio. The captain of this ship knelt down, prayed to God for direction and then turned the ship around and went full steam ahead through the ice fields. This was the ship that saved the 705 survivors of the Titanic.

When the captain looked back at the ice fields they had come through, he said Someone else hands must have been at the helm of this ship! This ship represents those who would pray to God for direction and then go without hesitation.

Life whispers in your soul and speaks to your heart. We need to take time to listen and to these whispers and take heed. 

The Burden

One Sunday morning, a wealthy man sat in his balcony enjoying sunshine and his coffee when a little ant caught his eye which was going from one side to the other side of the balcony carrying a big leaf several times more than its size. The man watched it for more than an hour. He saw that the ant faced many impediments during its journey, paused, took a diversion and then continued towards destination. At one point the tiny creature came across a crack in the floor. It paused... for a little while, analyzed and then laid the huge leaf over the crack, walked over the leaf, picked the leaf on the other side then continued its journey. 

The man was captivated by the cleverness of the ant, one of God’s tiniest creatures. The incident left the man in awe and forced him to contemplate over the miracle of Creation. It showed the greatness of the Creator. In front of his eyes there was this tiny creature of God, lacking in size yet equipped with a brain to analyze, contemplate, reason, explore, discover and overcome. Along with all these capabilities, the man also noticed that this tiny creature shared some human shortcomings. 

The man saw about an hour later the creature had reached its destination – a tiny hole in the floor which was entrance to its underground dwelling. And it was at this point that the ant’s shortcoming that it shared with the man was revealed. How could the ant carry into the tiny hole the large leaf that it had managed to carefully bring to the destination? It simply couldn’t…! 

So the tiny creature, after all the painstaking and hard work and exercising great skills, overcoming all the difficulties along the way, just left behind the large leaf and went home empty-handed. The ant had not thought about the end before it began its challenging journey and in the end the large leaf was nothing more than a burden to it. The creature had no option, but to leave it behind to reach its destination. The man learned a great lesson that day.

Isn’t that the truth about our lives? We worry about our family, we worry about our job, we worry about how to earn more money, we worry about where we should live – 5 bedroom or 6 bedroom house, what kind of vehicle to buy – a Mercedes or BMW or a Porsche, what kind of dresses to wear, all sorts of things, only to abandon all these things when we reach our last destination  .We don’t realize in our life’s journey that these are just burdens that we are carrying with utmost care and fear of losing them, only to find that at the end they are useless and we can’t take them with us.

A gift from a father

A young man was getting ready to graduate from college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealers showroom,
and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted.
As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his
father had purchased the car. Finally, on the morning of his
graduation, his father called him into his private study, told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and how much he loved him. He handed him a beautifully wrapped gift box.
Curious, but somewhat disappointed, the young man opened the box and
found a lovely, leather-bound Bible with his name embossed
in gold.
Angrily, he raised his voice to his father and said,"With all your money you give me a Bible?" He stormed out of the house, leaving the Bible behind.

I WANTED A CAR , NOT A BIBLE 

Many years passed and the young man was very successful in business. He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his father was very old. He thought perhaps he should go to him.He had not seen him since that graduation day.
But before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to
him. He needed to come home immediately and take care of things.
When he arrived at his father's house, sadness and regret filled his heart. He began to search through his father's important documents and saw the Bible ,new,just as he had left it years ago.
With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. His father had
carefully underlined a verse :

"And if you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father which is in Heaven, give to those who ask Him?"

(Cross reference :  Mathew 7.11; Luke 11.13

As he read those words, a car key dropped from the back of the Bible. It had a tag with the dealers name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired.
On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words...
PAID IN FULL.

How many times do we miss God's blessings because they are not packaged as we expected?

How a Password Changed my Life

I was having a great morning until I sat down in front of my office computer 
“your password has expired” 

a server message flashed on my screen, with instructions for changing it. 
Coming up with a new code doesn’t seem like a big deal, unless you work at my company, where we have to change it monthly, using at least one uppercase character, one lower case character, one symbol and one number. 

Oh and the password can’t be fewer than eight characters.

And I can’t use any of the same passwords I’ve used in the past three months.

Suddenly I was furious, what didn’t make it any better was that I was deeply depressed after my recent divorce.

Disbelief over what she 
had done to me was what I thought all day.

That didn’t mean anything to the empty field with the pulsating cursor, waiting for me to type a password that I have to reenter many times – for the next 30 days. 

I remembered a tip I’d heard from my former boss . He’d said “ I’m going to use a password that is going to change my life”

I couldn’t focus on getting things done in my current mood. 

There was clear indication that I needed to regain control over my life, but I couldn’t heed them.

My password became the indicator. My password reminded me that I shouldn’t let myself be a victim of my recent breakup and that I was strong enough to do something about it.

I made my password – Forgive@her , 

I had to type this password several times every day each time my computer would lock.

Each time I came back from lunch I wrote forgive her.

The simple action changed the way I looked at my ex-wife.

That constant reminder of reconciliation led me to accept
the way things happened and helped me deal with my depression. 

As one month wore on, I felt a slow healing began to take place.

By the time the server prompted me to change my password following month, I felt free.

The next time I had to change my password I thought about the next thing that I had to get done. 

My password became Quit@smoking4ever .

It motivated me to follow my goal and I was able to quit smoking.

One month later, my password became
Save4trip@thiland, 

and in three months I was able to visit Thailand.

Seeing how reminders helped me materialize my goals kept me motivated and excited

While its sometimes difficult to come up with your next
goal, keeping at it brings great results.

After a few months my password was Save4@ring !!! 

Life is going to change again !!🙏

The Butterfly

A man, an avid Gardener saw a small Butterfly laying few eggs in one of the pots in his garden.
Since that day he looked at the egg with ever growing curiosity and eagerness.
The egg started to move and shake a little.
He was excited to see a new life coming up right in front of his eyes.
He spent hours watching the egg now. The egg started to expand and develop cracks.
A tiny head and antennae started to come out ever so slowly. The man's excitement knew no bounds.
He got his magnifying glasses and sat to watch the life and body of a pupa coming out.

He saw the struggle of the tender pupa and couldn't resist his urge to "HELP".
He went and got a tender forceps to help the egg break, a nip here, a nip there to help the struggling life and the pupa was out. The man was ecstatic!
He waited now each day for the pupa to grow and fly like a beautiful butterfly, but alas that never happened.
The larvae pupa had a oversized head and kept crawling along in the pot for the full 4 weeks and died!

Depressed the man went to his botanist friend and asked the reason. His friend told him the struggle to break out of the egg helps the larvae to send blood to its wings and the head push helps the head to remain small so that the tender wings can support it thru its 4 week life cycle. In his eagerness to help, the man destroyed a beautiful life!

Struggles help all of us, that's why a bit of effort goes a long way to develop our strength to face life's difficulties!
As parents, we sometimes go too far trying to help and protect our kids from life's harsh realities and disappointments.
We don't want our kids to struggle like we did.

Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Dan Kindlon says that over-protected children are more likely to struggle in relationships and with challenges.
We're sending our kids the message that they're not capable of helping themselves.

To quote clinical psychologist, Dr. Wendy 's Moral:
"It  is  Our Job  to  prepare  Our  Children  for  the  Road & Not  prepare  the  Road for  Our Children"