Short Stories - Ministries Worldwide

Practicing The Golden Rule

I read recently about one of the most touching
moments in sports I’ve ever heard about.

It took place at a women’s softball game on April
26. Central Washington and Western Oregon
faced off against each other, with the winner to receive a bid to the NCAA’s
Division II playoffs.

Sara Tucholsky, a Western Oregon
player, came to the plate in the second inning with the score tied 0-0 and two
runners on base . Sara had never hit a home run in her lifetime. However,
things were about to change. She connected on a pitch and hit the ball over the
center field fence. Due to her excitement, she missed first base. So she
stopped and turned to go back to the base. But when she made the sudden stop
and turn, she collapsed to the ground, having torn her ACL.

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Little David And The Stick Man

Stories Inspiring

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Thirty-seven scrubbed first graders smiled up at me. Thirty-seven!

This was my very first day of teaching many years ago and I looked around for something upon which to hang my fears. With this many students, it needed to be substantial.

I had been assigned to this county school filled with children whose parents worked in the nearby hosiery mills. Most lived in well-kept and not-so-well-kept trailer parks. Those mothers who had saved enough green stamps for the requisite framed print of Christ for their living rooms also saved to purchase petunias for the white-washed tire out front, filled with rich dirt from the natural compost behind Amos hosiery mill.

This first day of school was designated as “Get Acquainted Day.” It was a major adjustment for one beautifully dressed but anxious girl in the second row who kept rising to look out the window for any sign of her mother on the playground. I had pinned a name tag on the front of each student and on myself, eager for us to become a cohesive unit.

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Easy Kindness

Stories Inspiring

In 1984, I
was a single father raising three children alone. Money was tight. We were on
our way home from our annual two-week camping trip in Vermont. I had an old Chevy, loaded with
camping gear: some tied to the roof, the trunk full to the top of the open lid.
We’d just crested a large hill when I felt the right rear tire go flat. I felt
clever for having the foresight to tie the spare tire to the top of the
trunk… until I removed the spare and remembered the jack was still at the
bottom of the trunk. I cursed my stupidity and prepared to unload the trunk.

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Some Scars

Stories Inspiring

Years ago on a hot summer day in south Florida a little boy decided to go for a swim in the old swimming hole behind his house. In a hurry to dive into the cool water, he ran out the back door, leaving behind shoes, socks, and shirt as he

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The Gratitude Attitude

Stories Inspiring

Rose Rev. John R. Ramsey tells how in one church
a certain person provided him with a rose boutonniere for the lapel of his suit
every Sunday. At first he really appreciated it but then it sort of became
routine.

Then one Sunday it became very special.

As he was leaving the Sunday Service a
young boy walked up to him and said, “Sir, what are you going to do with
your flower?” At first the preacher didn’t know what the boy was talking
about. When it sank in, he pointed to the rose on his lapel and asked the boy,
“Do you mean this?”

The boy said, “Yes, sir. If you’re
just going to throw it away, I would like it.”

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The rich family in church

Stories Inspiring

I’ll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom

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Send it All!

Stories Inspiring

B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore

My 4-year old son,
Declan, loves trains. He enjoys seeing trains whenever he has a chance — he
hopes we get stopped at railroad crossings — and playing with toy trains is
his favorite pastime. In spring 2003, Declan had been saving his money for many
months towards the goal of getting a “real” model freight train. Then
his Great-Aunt Gracie sent him newspaper clippings about the B&O Railroad
Museum in Baltimore, Maryland,
where she lives. A major snowstorm had collapsed the roof of the roundhouse,
the main museum building. This destroyed many one-of-a-kind locomotives, train
cars, and antique collectibles from the railroad’s heyday. I read the articles
to Declan, and he asked when they’d be able to fix the roundhouse and trains,
“so everybody can see them and learn about trains”. I explained that
insurance would pay to fix the building, but some train cars were irreparably
damaged. The remaining cars would take a long time to repair, as the museum was
relying upon donations to fund the expensive repairs.

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The Wrong Solution

Stories Inspiring

A story tells of a merchant in a small town who had identical twin sons. The boys worked for their father in the department store he owned and, when he died, they took over the store. Everything went well until the day a dollar bill disappeared. One of the brothers

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Love That Lasts

Stories Inspiring

It’s six
A.M., gray and still. Thelma Wright, a sparrow-sized woman of seventy-seven, sits
on the back step watching the sunrise. Overhead two purple finches circle.
Thelma is often up before the birds. Up at midnight to care for her husband,
Wilbur, she seldom drops back to sleep. Instead she scrubs the bathtub or dusts
a few shelves. In the ten years since Wilbur’s stroke she’s had little time for
chores in daylight. Indoors, there is a bit of sparrow in her movements, the
plucky hip-hop of arthritic joints. On the kitchen counter, the coffee machine
gurgles. Thelma peers at it through her thick-lensed glasses. By instinct more
than sight, she navigates the familiar kitchen spaces, cupboard to refrigerator
to drawer, mixing Wilbur’s strawberry drink, carrying his bran flakes and
white-scalloped bowl.

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A Cup Of Coffee

Stories Inspiring

Coffee A young woman went to her mother and told
her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it
and wanted to give up, She was tired of fighting and struggling.

It seemed as one problem was solved, a new
one arose. Her mother took her to the kitchen.
She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire.

Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the
second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let
them sit and boil; without saying a word. In about twenty minutes she turned
off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a
bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and
placed it in a bowl.

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