Rocky:
I am very sorry for you and your family in regards to the ugly
attacks on your daughter. I offer my sympathy and hope you can
find a way through this difficult time. I spent some time
searching though my files looking for something meaningful. The
best I could find are included in this message. Even if you're
not a deeply religous person, there are times that we must put
our faith into something greater than the human race. As I have
heard others say, and I do so now, "There is evel in the world."
Sincerely
Blake U. Urban aka "Bullwinkle" MG T mailing list subscriber
1710 Melody Lane
Aberdeen, SD 57401
I asked the Lord to bless you
As I prayed for you today
To guide you and protect you
As you go along your way....
His love is always with you
His promises are true,
And when we give Him all our cares
You know He will see us through
So when the road you're traveling on
Seems difficult at best
Just remember I'm here praying
And God will do the rest.>
Who Packs Your Parachute?
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss
what is
really important. We may fail to say hello, lease, or thank you,
congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to
them,
give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.
Charles Plumb, a US Naval Academy graduate, was a jet fighter
pilot in
Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a
surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy
hands.
He was captured and spent six years in a communist Vietnamese
prison.
He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from
that
experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a
man
at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet
fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You
were
shot down!"
"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.
"I packed your parachute," the man replied.
Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand
and
said, "I guess it worked!" Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If
your
chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."
Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man.
Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he might have looked like in
a
Navy uniform (a Dixie-cup hat, a bib in the back, and bell bottom
trousers). I wondered how many times I might have seen him and
not
even said good
morning, how are you or anything because, you see, I was a
fighter
pilot and he was just a sailor."
Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long
wooden
table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds
and
folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time
the
fate of someone he didn't know. Now, Plumb asks his audience,
"Who's
packing your parachute?" Everyone has
someone who provides what they need to make it through the day.
Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes
when his
plane was shot down over enemy territory. He needed his physical
parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his
spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before
reaching
safety.
His experience reminds us all to prepare ourselves to weather
whatever
storms lie ahead. As you go through this week, this month, this
year...recognize the people who pack your parachutes.
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