DARTS

A young lady named Sally, relates an experience she had in a Seminary Class, given by her teacher, Dr. Smith. She says Dr. Smith was known for his elaborate object lessons. 



One particular day, Sally walked into the seminary and knew they were in for a fun day. On the wall was a big target and on a nearby table were many darts. Dr. Smith told the students to draw a picture of someone that they disliked or someone who had made them angry, and he would allow them to throw darts at the person's picture. 



Sally's girlfriend drew a picture of a girl who had stolen her boyfriend. Another friend drew a picture of his little brother. Sally drew a picture of a former friend, putting a great deal of detail into her drawing, even drawing pimples on the face. Sally was pleased at the overall effect she had achieved. 



The class lined up and began throwing darts, with much laughter and hilarity. Some of the students threw their darts with such force that their targets were ripping apart. Sally looked forward to her turn,and was filled with disappointment when Dr. Smith, because of time limits, asked the students to return to their seats. As Sally sat thinking about how angry she was because she didn't have a chance to throw any darts at her target. 



Dr. Smith began removing the target from the wall. Underneath the target was a picture of Jesus..... 



A complete hush fell over the as each student viewed the mangled picture of Jesus; holes and jagged marks covered His face and His eyes were pierced. Dr. Smith said only these words..... "In as much as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Matthew 25:40 



No other words were necessary; the tear-filled eyes of each student focused only on the picture of Christ. 

BLUE HUMMINGBIRD

Once, long ago, there was a young boy who lived in a distant land called Tandow. He was a cheerful lad with not a care in the world. A special friend had he, the little blue hummingbird. Now this little boy didn't have a lot of great friends, but the little bird and the boy were inseparable friends. The boy loved the little humming bird, so he built him a home. The bird also loved the boy and would follow him wherever he would go. As time went by their love grew and grew. 



Then one day the young lad met a pretty young girl in school. The girl had long blonde hair, blue eyes, and a cute little smile. This was about the time of the biggest dance of the year. All the boy could think about was how he would love to take the girl to the dance. He gathered his courage all day and at the end of school confronted the girl and asked her to go with him to the dance. 



Now this young girl was very popular and felt she did not want to be seen with the boy who cared for her so, but she did not want to hurt his feelings and so figured out a way to avoid saying no or yes. She told the boy if he brought her a red rose she would allow him to escort her to the dance. 



This hurt the little boy because he knew that in the land of Tandow there had never been a red rose. In fact, the only roses in the land Tandow were white. On the way home the boy kept mumbling to himself why couldn't she have asked for a white rose. There were hundreds of them in his front yard. 



Feeling sorry for himself the boy didn't even notice his friend the hummingbird fluttering above him. Now the bird loved him so, that it could tell instantly the boy was troubled. The bird hovered closer as the boy mumbled on home. Now the bird knew why the boy was so troubled. The bird could not rest all the night long, it pondered all night, a solution to the boy's problem. 



Finally as the sun began to rise the answer to how the bird could help his best friend entered his mind. The little blue hummingbird flew to a rose bush and searched for a large rose with a stem bearing thorns directly above it. Now the bird chose a thorn and with all the power in his wings cast his small body against the sharp thorn. It entered with great pain, as the tear drops of blood fell upon the white petals of the rose. 



Now as the boy was ready for school, as he left the house he saw a red rose, he could hardly believe it, he ran to the bush and plucked the red rose. In his excitement he failed to notice the lifeless little body that lay below the bush in a puddle of blood. Happy as could be, he began with his red rose on his way to school. Before he got there some other boys playing football in a field called to him and asked him to come and play. 



His first thought was, no, he had something more important to do. But they begged him and said they really needed him to even the teams. He looked at the rose, then them, then back at the rose. He said to himself. Ah!!! She didn't really want to go with me anyway. Then, throwing the rose down, the boy went and played football. 



You've probably already figured out the allegory...

1. The boy is each of us.


2. The humming bird is Jesus Christ.


3. The girl is eternal life.


4. The rose is the atonement.


5. The football game is the worldly things we sometimes feel are so important.

ATTITUDE

Jerry 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 unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry 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 to Jerry and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”



Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, 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,” Jerry 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 will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live life.”



I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry 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 Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. uckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.



I saw Jerry 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 did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.



“The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door, ” Jerry replied. 



“Then, as I lay on the floor, 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.



Jerry 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 Jerry. “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, ‘Bullets!’ Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live.



Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.” Jerry 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. 



Attitude, after all, is everything.