Jessie's Gloves

JESSIE'S GLOVES

By Rick Philips, Heart at Work

We are as a leader sometimes forget the importance of our employee. Everyday, we expect the people who with us to do the best in their work. A little attention can make a big different in people lives. I read the story below, it is a reminder for me.

I do a lot of management training each year for the Circle K Corporation, a national chain of convenience stores. Among the topics we address in our seminars is the retention of quality employees - a real challenge to managers when you consider the pay scale in the service industry. During these discussions, I ask the participants,

"What has caused you to stay long enough to become a manager?" Some time back a new manager took the question and slowly, with her voice almost breaking, said, "It was a $19 baseball glove."

Cynthia told the group that she originally took a Circle K clerk job as an interim position while she looked for something better. On her second or third day behind the counter, she received a phone call from her nine-year old son, Jessie. He needed a baseball glove for Little League. She explained that as a single mother, money was very tight, and her first check would have to go for paying bills. Perhaps she could buy his baseball glove with her second or third check.

When Cynthia arrived for work the next morning, Patricia, the store manager, asked her to come to the small room in back of the store that served as an office. Cynthia wondered if she had done something wrong or left some part of her job incomplete from the day before. She was concerned and confused.

Patricia handed her a box. "I overheard you talking to your son yesterday," she said, "and I know that it is hard to explain things to kids. This is a baseball glove for Jessie because he may not understand how important he is, even though you have to pay bills before you can buy gloves. You know we can't pay good people like you as much as we would like to; but we do care, and I want you to know you are important to us."

The thoughtfulness, empathy and love of this convenience store manager demonstrates vividly that people remember more how much an employer cares than how much the employer pays. An important lesson for the price of a Little League baseball glove.

Angel in real life

The author of the story below is unknown. But this story inspire me a lot. I believe in angel, I believe that God use people to be His Angel. I believe this story will enrich my heaven blog. It will remind me whenever I need a miracle in my life, that miracle could happen for everyone.

In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two.

Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave 15 dollars a week to buy groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it.

I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress. I loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck. The kids stayed, crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince whomever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.

The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour and I could start that night.

I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal. That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel.

When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money - fully half of what I averaged every night. As the weeks went by, heating bills added another strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home. One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana? I wondered. I made a deal with the owner of the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.

On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up. When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning I hurried to the car. I was hoping the kids wouldn't wake up before I managed to get home and get the presents from the basement and place them under the tree. (We had cut down a small cedar tree by the side of the road down by the dump.)

It was still dark and I couldn't see much, but there appeared to be some dark shadows in the car - or was that just a trick of the night? Something certainly looked different, but it was hard to tell what. When I reached the car I peered warily into one of the side windows. Then my jaw dropped in amazement. My old battered Chevy was full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's side door, scrambled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was a whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes: There were candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll. As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the fac es of my little ones that precious morning.

Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December.

And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.

Parent's love

Here's a message that needs to be drilled into the hearts and minds of every mom and dad: You don't love your kids because of what they do, but because of who they are.

Simply rewarding children with affection because of their accomplishments is like a circus trainer giving a dog some food every time he jumps through a hoop. The dog isn't loved for himself, but for his actions.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger, has a new book for children titled, "Why Do You Love Me?" Part of the story includes a mother explaining to her son that it is not what he does that makes her love him -- she loves him because he is unique and because he is her son.

You don't show affection simply because a child is good at sport or science. Every mom, dad and grandparent needs to memorize the words of a long-time popular song: "I love you most of all because you're you."

I read a magazine while ago, about the football coach, He has his son on his team..He son is the star of his team. One day a reporter interviewed him and ask him, you must be proud of your son because he is a great player on your team. His answer make me swelled with tears he said " I proud of my son even he is not score any goal, because I proud of him just because the way he is not because his performance.

I took years for me to realize that my father proud of me the way I am. I was misunderstood for may years. I try to do the best things I could just to make him proud, yet I always feel that I haven't done anything good enough for him or for my mom.

Now I am a mom, I will learn to communicate it right with my son, that I love him and proud of him just the way he is, and not because of his performance, achievement.

The Right Moves

Right Moves, The

by: Tom Crabtree, Source Unknown

One day, many years ago, when I was working as a psychologist at a children's institution in England, an adolescent boy showed up in the waiting room. I went out there where he was walking up and down restlessly. I showed him into my office and pointed to the chair on the other side of my desk. It was in late autumn, and the lilac bush outside the window had shed all its leaves. "Please sit down," I said. David wore a black rain coat that was buttoned all the way up to his neck. His face was pale, and he stared at his feet while wringing his hands nervously. He had lost his father as an infant, and had lived together with his mother and grandfather since. But the year before David turned 13, his grandfather died and his mother was killed in a car accident. Now he was 14 and in family care. His head teacher had referred him to me. "This boy," he wrote, "is understandably very sad and depressed. He refuses to talk to others and I'm very worried about him. Can you help?" I looked at David. How could I help him? There are human tragedies psychology doesn't have the answer to, and which no words can describe. Sometimes the best thing one can do is to listen openly and sympathetically. The first two times we met, David didn't say a word. He sat hunched up in the chair and only looked up to look at the children's drawings on the wall behind me. As he was about to leave after the second visit, I put my hand on his shoulder. He didn't shrink back, but he didn't look at me either. "Come back next week, if you like," I said. I hesitated a bit. Then I said, "I know it hurts." He came, and I suggested we play a game of chess. He nodded. After that we played chess every Wednesday afternoon - in complete silence and without making any eye contact. It's not easy to cheat in chess, but I admit that I made sure David won once or twice. Usually, he arrived earlier than agreed, took the chessboard and pieces from the shelf and began setting them up before I even got a chance to sit down. It seemed as if he enjoyed my company. But why did he never look at me? "Perhaps he simply needs someone to share his pain with," I thought. "Perhaps he senses that I respect his suffering." One afternoon in late winter, David took off his rain coat and put it on the back of the chair. While he was setting up the chess pieces, his face seemed more alive and his motions more lively. Some months later, when the lilacs blossomed outside, I sat starring at David's head, while he was bent over the chessboard. I thought about how little we know about therapy - about the mysterious process associated with healing. Suddenly, he looked up at me. "It's your turn," he said. After that day, David started talking. He got friends in school and joined a bicycle club. He wrote to me a few times ("I'm biking with some friends and I feel great"); letters about how he would try to get into university. After some time, the letters stopped. Now he had really started to live his own life. Maybe I gave David something. At least I learned a lot from him. I learned how time makes it possible to overcome what seems to be an insuperable pain. I learned to be there for people who need me. And David showed me how one - without any words - can reach out to another person. All it takes is a hug, a shoulder to cry on, a friendly touch, a sympathetic nature - and an ear that listens. The story above inspire me. If I look around and open the eyes of my heart, I will be able to see people that need to be healed, hurting people. People that need a friendly touch, or some people that need our ear. This story remind me to open my eyes and heart to people in need. I let my job, deadline, meeting, paperwork, my personal problems stop me from looking around and share the love with other people, with my friends, with my family. I'm too busy to take care of my job and without I realize it...it become a shell that isolated me from the outside world. It cover the light and stop me from being a salt.

Attitude

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, then circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, say, or do. It is more important than appearance, talent, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.

We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.

Losing My Father

I lost my father 2 months ago. It is a big lost for me. There was nothing I can do about it. He's been sicked of cancer for more than a year. I could not stand to saw him suffer. But he was a strong man. Never a bit I hear him complaint about his situation nor he show his pain to us.

Facing life without him is so different, I don't have anyone that I can go for the advise or just a comforting conversation during my hardship. Live without him give me the emptiness in my heart. Something aching deep down in my heart. So sad but no tears.

The memories remain. The way he treated me, stern yet so kind. No one can replace him...no one ever. The pain will never really fade. I miss him everyday of my life...there will be more days I will miss him. I'll miss his patience, his understanding. I will always remember him as a person who fight for his family, stand for his family in time of trouble, his unconditional love for his children inspire me. He is a honorable man.

Women like a tea bags

Women are like tea bags, you never know how strong they are until they are in hot water. - Nancy Reagen-

How true, I like this quote, As an old saying " women is a weak creature so that men have to protect them" well, I'm not really agree with this. God did not create women as a weak creature, but as a helper for a man. And as a helper, it must be stronger than the one that she help.

Sometime I feel, that I have enough, I'm tired of all the struggle, the problem that come to my life, I'm tired with all the deadline and working pressure. I just want to have a peaceful happy life as a fairytale life. But I do realize that kind of life will not make me the way I am today.

I read so many times, I say so many times that in time of fire, we have our character shaped and refined.

Every time the difficulties stop by in my life, I always force myself to see the what part of my character that need to be refine. That way easier for me to move forward in the storm. Some of my friends say that my life is like a jet coaster going up and down so fast. She told me that that kind of life is too hard for her, if she has to be in my position. It made me think, why God allow me to go through all the storm of life like that, I was thinking so unfortunate. But as the opposite, I am lucky to have the opportunity to grow stronger in the hot water, in the fire. I'm lucky that out of the fire a walk as a winner.

God allow all the bad circumstances in my life to make me a better person.