Inspiration Manifestation » Uncategorized

God’s Amazing Gifts

Owner — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:53:44 +0000

All I can say is WOW! God gives each of us amazing gifts - and it is up to us to discover them and put them to good use. Watch this video and be blown away by an 11 year old girl...

Who’s Your Favorite?

Owner — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:06:01 +0000

There are some wonderful people shown in this video and they all inspire me in different ways. I know who my favorite is - who's yours?

You Won’t Believe Where You Can Find Humor…

Owner — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:15:31 +0000

All I can say is if this guy can find humor in his situation, we can all find humor in ours - check it out and watch through end because you WILL laugh throughout it!

I am in the running to get a $250,000 Grant from PEPSI. Whoever gets the most votes gets the cash!

You can place a vote every day - SO PLEASE take 1 minute and vote for our Grant!!!

Here's the link:-->> http://www.refresheverything.com/tuki

This is a HUGE project for us and I REALLY need your support.

Reasons Why You’re Blessed.

Owner — Mon, 24 May 2010 19:17:41 +0000

Sometimes, we don't know how blessed we are until we get a little perspective.

Here goes: If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following. There would be:

57 Asians

21 Europeans

14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south (that includes us here in the United States).

8 would be Africans

52 would be female

48 would be male

70 would be non-white
30 would be white

70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian

89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.

80 would live in substandard housing

70 would be unable to read

50 would suffer from malnutrition

(ONE)1 would be near death;

(ONE)1 would be near birth;

(ONE)1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education;

(ONE)1 (yes, only 1) would own a computer.

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

And, therefore . . .

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful, you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not.

If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

As you read this and are reminded how life is in the rest of the world, remember just how blessed you really are!

The Price (and Rewards) of Having Children.

Owner — Tue, 18 May 2010 21:39:13 +0000

Great story about raising children with a different perspective. Normally, you only see the breakdown of the cost of raising a child, but this piece provides the rewards too.

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition. But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

· $8,896.66 a year,
· $741.3 month, or * $171.08 a week.
· That's a mere $24.24 a day!
· Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is don't have children if you want to be "rich." Actually, it is just the opposite.

What do you get for your $160,140?

Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
Glimpses of God every day.
Giggles under the covers every night.
More love than your heart can hold.
Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites
Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to:

finger-paint,
carve pumpkins,
play hide-and-seek,
catch lightning bugs, and
never stop believing in Santa Claus. You have an excuse to:
keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
watching Saturday morning cartoons,
going to Disney movies, and
wishing on stars.
You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:

retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,
taking the training wheels off a bike,
removing a splinter,
filling a wading pool,
coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the:

· first step,
· first word,
· first bra,
· first date, and
· first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits.

So . . one day they will like you, love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren!!!!!!!

An Unlikely Angel.

Owner — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:17:56 +0000

"Watch out! You nearly broad sided that car!" My father yelled at me.   "Can't you do anything right?"

     Those words hurt worse than blows. I turned my head toward the elderly man in the seat beside me, daring me to challenge him. A lump rose in my throat as I averted my eyes. I wasn't prepared for another battle.

     "I saw the car, Dad. Please don't yell at me when I'm driving."

     My voice was measured and steady, sounding far calmer than I really felt.

     Dad glared at me, then turned away and settled back. At home I left Dad in front of the television and went outside to collect my thoughts. Dark, heavy clouds hung in the air with a promise of rain. The rumble of distant thunder seemed to echo my inner turmoil. What could I do about him?

     Dad had been a lumberjack in Washington and Oregon He had enjoyed being outdoors and had reveled in pitting his strength against the forces of nature. He had entered grueling lumberjack competitions, and had placed often.

     The shelves in his house were filled with trophies that attested to his powers.

     The years marched on relentlessly. The first time he couldn't lift a heavy log, he joked about it; but later that same day I saw him outside alone, straining to lift it. He became irritable whenever anyone teased him about his advancing age, or when he couldn't do something he had done as a younger man.

    Four days after his sixty-seventh birthday, he had a heart attack. An ambulance sped him to the hospital while a paramedic administered CPR to keep blood and oxygen flowing.

     At the hospital, Dad was rushed into an operating room. He was lucky; he survived... But something inside Dad died. His zest for life was gone He obstinately refused to follow doctor's orders. Suggestions and offers of help were turned aside with sarcasm and insults. The number of visitors thinned, then finally stopped altogether. Dad was left alone.

     My husband, Dick, and I asked Dad to come live with us on our small farm. We hoped the fresh air and rustic atmosphere would help him adjust.

     Within a week after he moved in, I regretted the invitation. It seemed nothing was satisfactory. He criticized everything I did. I became frustrated and moody. Soon I was taking my pent-up anger out on Dick. We began to bicker and argue..

     Alarmed, Dick sought out our pastor and explained the situation. The clergyman set up weekly counseling appointments for us. At the close of each session he prayed, asking God to soothe Dad's
troubled mind.

     But the months wore on and God was silent. Something had to be done and it was up to me to do it.

     The next day I sat down with the phone book and methodically called each of the mental health clinics listed in the Yellow Pages. I explained my problem to each of the sympathetic voices that answered in vain.

     Just when I was giving up hope, one of the voices suddenly exclaimed, "I just read something that might help you! Let me go get the article."

     I listened as she read.. The article described a remarkable study done at a nursing home. All of the patients were under treatment for chronic depression. Yet their attitudes had improved dramatically when they were given responsibility for a dog.

     I drove to the animal shelter that afternoon. After I filled out a questionnaire, a uniformed officer led me to the kennels. The odor of disinfectant stung my nostrils as I moved down the row of pens. Each contained five to seven dogs. Long-haired dogs, curly-haired dogs, black dogs, spotted dogs all jumped up, trying to reach me. I studied each one but rejected one after the other for various reasons too big, too small, too much hair. As I neared the last pen a dog in the shadows of the far corner struggled to his feet, walked to the front of the run and sat down. It was a pointer, one of the dog world's aristocrats. But this was a caricature of the breed..

     Years had etched his face and muzzle with shades of gray. His hipbones jutted out in lopsided triangles. But it was his eyes that caught and held my attention.. Calm and clear, they beheld me unwaveringly.

     I pointed to the dog "Can you tell me about him?"

     The officer looked, then shook his head in puzzlement. "He's a funny one. Appeared out of nowhere and sat in front of the gate. We brought him in, figuring someone would be right down to claim him. That was two weeks ago and we've heard nothing. His time is up tomorrow.." He gestured helplessly.

     As the words sank in I turned to the man in horror. "You mean you're going to kill him?"

     "Ma'am," he said gently, "that's our policy. We don't have room for every unclaimed dog."

     I looked at the pointer again. The calm brown eyes awaited my decision. "I'll take him," I said..

     I drove home with the dog on the front seat beside me. When I reached the house I honked the horn twice. I was helping my prize out of the car when Dad shuffled onto the front porch. "Ta-da! Look what I got for you, Dad!" I said excitedly.

     Dad looked, then wrinkled his face in disgust. "If I had wanted a dog I would have gotten one. And I would have picked out a better specimen than that bag of bones. Keep it! I don't want it" Dad waved his arm scornfully and turned back toward the house.

     Anger rose inside me It squeezed together my throat muscles and pounded into my temples. "You'd better get used to him, Dad. He's staying!"

     Dad ignored me. "Did you hear me, Dad?" I screamed.

     At those words Dad whirled angrily, his hands clenched at his sides, his eyes narrowed and blazing with hate.

     We stood glaring at each other like duelists, when suddenly the pointer pulled free from my grasp. He wobbled toward my dad and sat down in front of him. Then slowly, carefully, he raised his paw.

     Dad's lower jaw trembled as he stared at the uplifted paw. Confusion replaced the anger in his eyes. The pointer waited patiently. Then Dad was on his knees hugging the animal.

     It was the beginning of a warm and intimate friendship. Dad named the pointer Cheyenne. Together he and Cheyenne explored the community. They spent long hours walking down dusty lanes. They spent reflective moments on the banks of streams, angling for tasty trout. They even started to attend Sunday services together, Dad sitting in a pew and Cheyenne lying quietly at his feet.

     Dad and Cheyenne were inseparable throughout the next three years. Dad's bitterness faded, and he and Cheyenne made many friends. Then late one night I was startled to feel Cheyenne's cold nose burrowing through our bed covers. He had never before come into our bedroom at night. I woke Dick, put on my robe and ran into my father's room. Dad lay in his bed, his face serene. But his spirit had left quietly sometime during the night.

     Two days later my shock and grief deepened when I discovered Cheyenne lying dead beside Dad's bed.. I wrapped his still form in the rag rug he had slept on. As Dick and I buried him near a favorite fishing hole, I silently thanked the dog for the help he had given me in restoring Dad's peace of mind.

     The morning of Dad's funeral dawned overcast and dreary. This day looks like the way I feel, I thought, as I walked down the aisle to the pews reserved for family. I was surprised to see the many friends Dad and Cheyenne had made filling the church. The pastor began his eulogy. It was a tribute to both Dad and the dog who had changed his life. And then the pastor turned to Hebrews 13:2. "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it."

     "I've often thanked God for sending that angel," he said.

     For me, the past dropped into place, completing a puzzle that I had not seen before: the sympathetic voice that had just read the right article....

     Cheyenne 's unexpected appearance at the animal shelter. .. ..his calm acceptance and complete devotion to my father. . and the proximity of their deaths. And suddenly I understood. I knew that God had answered my prayers after all.

Does This Video Change Your Perspective?

Owner — Sun, 09 May 2010 20:10:31 +0000

It's interesting what changes your perspective. Sometimes its a singular event with dramatic impact, a game-changer that alters your view. Other times its a trusted friend putting a bug in your ear, sending you a different direction on the road of life.

Today's video is something of that kind, an interesting story told in an extremely clever way. It's short- so definitely check it out- and see how it changes your perspective as it changes its own.

You may want to select the full screen option once the video starts playing and definitely have your speakers on.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A Mother’s Day Tribute

Owner — Thu, 06 May 2010 20:47:38 +0000

Happy Mother's Day! Today we offer you a collection of inspirational quotes on mothers coming straight from the hearts of some of the most prolific writers and celebrated personalities of our time. Enjoy!

1. If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much.

Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

2. Never marry a man who hates his mother, because he'll end up hating you.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Jill Bennett

3. A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Dorothy Canfield Fisher

4. At work, you think of the children you have left at home.
At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Golda Meir

5. Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Unknown

6. As is the mother, so is her daughter.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Ezekiel 16:4

7. Men are what their mothers made them.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Ralph Waldo Emerson

8. Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Harriet Beecher Stowe

9. We never know the love of the parent until we become parents ourselves.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Henry Ward Beecher

10. The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Honore de Balzac, author

11. The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Henry Ward Beecher, US Congressional clergyman

12. Who is getting more pleasure from this rocking, the baby or me?
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Nancy Thayer, author

13. By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author

14. Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Lin Yutang, Chinese writer

15. Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at de sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Zora Neale Hurston, folklorist and writer

16. That best academy, a mother's knee.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: James Russell Lowell, poet, critic and diplomat

17. Making a decision to have a child--it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Elizabeth Stone

18. Anyone who doesn't miss the past never had a mother.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Gregory Nunn

19. A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Tenneva Jordan

20. Few misfortunes can befall a boy which brings worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: W. Somerset Maugham

21. The lullaby is the spell whereby the mother attempts to transform herself back from an ogre to a saint.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: James Fenton

22. No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Florida Scott-Maxwell

23. Biological possibility and desire are not the same as biological need. Women have childbearing equipment. For them to choose not to use the equipment is no more blocking what is instinctive than it is for a man who, muscles or no, chooses not to be a weightlifter.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Betty Rollin

24. Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women's opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Elaine Heffner

25. Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: James Joyce

26. All that remains to the mother in modern consumer society is the role of scapegoat; psychoanalysis uses huge amounts of money and time to persuade analysis and to foist their problems on to the absent mother, who has no opportunity to utter a word in her own defense. Hostility to the mother in our societies is an index of mental health.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Germaine Greer

27. Woman in the home has not yet lost her dignity, in spite of Mother's Day, with its offensive implication that our love needs an annual nudging, like our enthusiasm for the battle of Bunker Hill.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: John Erskine

28. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Oscar Wilde

29. The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.
She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Rajneesh

30. The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Author Unknown

31. A suburban mother's role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Peter De Vries

32. All mothers are working mothers.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Author Unknown

33. The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men - from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Oliver Wendell Holmes

34. Motherhood is priced; Of God, at price no man may dare/To lessen or misunderstand.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Helen Hunt Jackson

35. It kills you to see them grow up. But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn't.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Barbara Kingsolver

36. God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Jewish proverb

37. I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Abraham Lincoln

38. Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs... since the payment is pure love.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Mildred B. Vermont

39. Nobody knows of the work it makes
To keep the home together.
Nobody knows of the steps it takes,
Nobody knows-but Mother.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Anonymous

40. If the whole world were put into one scale, and my mother in the other, the whole world would kick the beam.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Henry Bickersteth

41. Mother - that was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: T. DeWitt Talmage

42. There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Chinese Proverb

43. When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty

44. No gift to your mother can ever equal her gift to you - life
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Anonymous quotes

45. An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Spanish Proverb

46. Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Aristotle

47. If nature had arranged that husbands and wives should have children alternatively, there would never be more than three in a family.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Lawrence Housman

48. Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your children.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Sam Levenson

49. Setting a good example for your children takes all the fun out of middle age.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: William Feather, The Business of Life, 1949

50. And remember that behind every successful woman......is a basket of dirty laundry.
Inspirational Quotes on Mothers Day by: Unknown

And we wanted to include this touching note we received from one of our readers. It's unedited and raw, eminently sincere:

I don't know if you print all emails you receive but my Mom is one really special person. My father was killed in a tragic accident when I was 3 and I think she was 23 and she had two children to raise. She never dated for 8 years then at a revival at church one nite she meet my "Daddy"....the only one I ever really knew and took us in as his own. They were happily married for many years and then he got Parkinsons and became very ill at the last. She had been babysitting many children in our community and had also taken care of him . He was an accountant and she also took up his business and has done well. She is a STAR! Sometimes she still gets on me...and I am 47 years old but I love her dearly and respect her so much! She homeschools my daughter that has scoliosis and Type 1 diabetes everyday as well. I am so blessed to have her and I wish you could print something about my Mom. All the kids call her Mama Glenna that she took care of and my daughter calls her Nana. She is MY MOM! I am so proud of her and love her so much. She is so strong and has given me so much strength through some difficult times.

Submitted by Tracy Ruschmeyer about her beloved mother, Glenna Chandler.

A Message for You… in a Bottle?

Owner — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:40:30 +0000

Miraculous Messages in a Bottle. How do these stories, coincidences at minimum, divine intervention at best, make you feel?

Whenever a message in a bottle is discovered on a beach or floating in the ocean, it feels like something out of a fairy tale. The idea that two people have made a connection that mathematics would say is virtually impossible gives us hope that life is more than a series of random events. Here are five stories of the almost unbelievable connections these messages have brought about.

1. A Ticket to Freedom

During a 1979 cruise to Hawaii, Dorothy and John Peckham passed the time by writing notes and throwing them overboard inside empty champagne bottles. They asked anyone who found one of their bottles to write them back, and even went so far as to include a $1 bill to cover the postage.

On March 4, 1983, John’s 70th birthday, the couple received a letter from Hoa Van Nguyen. Nguyen, a former soldier in the Vietnamese Army, said he and his younger brother had found one of the Peckhams’ bottles as the two men were floating 15 kilometers from the shore of Songkhla Province in Thailand. They were braving the waters of the Pacific in a small, shallow riverboat in order to escape the Communist regime in Vietnam. When they saw the bottle, they felt as though a prayer had been answered, giving them the strength to carry on. After reading the letter, the Peckhams looked for Songkhla on a map and were shocked to find that the bottle had traveled 9,000 miles from Hawaii.

The Peckhams corresponded with Hoa for years, sharing in his joy when they received a photo from his wedding, then again nine months later when they saw his newborn son. But most of all, they empathized with Hoa’s desire to give his family the best life he could. So when Hoa asked if the Peckhams could help his family move to the U.S., they didn’t hesitate. After months of working with U.S. Immigration, the two families finally did meet in 1985, when a plane from Thailand landed in Los Angeles—the Nguyens’ new home.

[Image courtesy of the Los Angeles Times.]

2. Love in a Bottle

Ake Viking was a lonely Swedish sailor who decided to place his search for love in the hands of fate. He wrote a simple letter “To Someone Beautiful and Far Away,” corked it inside a bottle, and tossed it overboard in the hopes that it might help him find a young woman to marry.

Two years later, in 1958, he was surprised to receive a letter from a Sicilian girl, Paolina, who said, “I am not beautiful, but it seems so miraculous that this little bottle should have traveled so far and long to reach me that I must send you an answer…” The two began writing one another and, three years after he threw a bottle into the sea, Ake moved to Sicily to marry his very long-distance love.

3. A Soldier To Watch Over Them

When Josh Baker was 10 years old, he dumped an entire bottle of his mother’s vanilla extract down the sink. He then wrote a quick note that said, “My name is Josh Baker. I’m 10. If you find this, put it on the news. The date is April 16, 1995.” He stuffed the note inside the empty extract bottle and threw it into Wisconsin’s White Lake.

Life went on and, after high school, Josh signed up for the Marines. During his tour of duty in Iraq, he survived the dangers of fighting door-to-door in Fallujah and made it back home to the U.S. safe and sound. Tragically, shortly after his homecoming, Josh was killed in a car accident, leaving his family and friends devastated and asking the obvious question, “Why?” A few months later, Steve Lieder and Robert Duncan, friends of Josh’s, were walking on the banks of White Lake, when they saw something glimmer on the water. After fishing it out, they realized it was a vanilla extract bottle with a piece of paper inside.

To friends and family, the message from 10-year old Josh appeared when they needed it most. It felt as though he was reaching out, letting them know that he was watching, and trying to help them move on. This message of hope is currently displayed in the Bakers’ home as a constant reminder that their son is still with them, even though he’s gone.

[Image courtesy of CBS.]

4. The Right Fisherman

In 1999, Steve Gowan spotted something clinging to his fishing nets. It was a very old bottle containing two letters written by Private Thomas Hughes, dated September 9, 1914. The first message asked the person that found the bottle to forward the second message to Hughes’ wife, Elizabeth. The note for Elizabeth was a nice, simple love letter, showing that his wife was in his thoughts as he made his way to France to fight in the early days of World War I.

After reading the letters, Gowan felt a great personal responsibility to see that they found their way home, even though he assumed Mrs. Hughes had died long ago. He began searching for her descendants and soon learned that Thomas and Elizabeth Hughes’ daughter was still alive in Auckland, New Zealand.

Sadly, Hughes died in battle shortly after he wrote the letters, so he never got to see Elizabeth, nor his two-year old daughter, Emily, ever again. Due to her young age at the time of his death, Emily never knew her father, though she grew up listening to stories about him from her mother and cherishing his posthumously award medals. So when The New Zealand Post offered to send Gowan to Auckland to hand deliver the bottle to Emily, he jumped at the chance to help her connect to this lost piece of her past.

For Emily, the bottle was a great source of joy and comfort. She said her father’s message couldn’t come home “until the right boat came along at the right time with the right fisherman.”

5. Laura Buxton, meet Laura Buxton

(Technically this isn’t a “message in a bottle” story, but it’s the same concept—and the story is simply too good not to mention it.)

In June 2001, Laura Buxton (almost 10) released a red balloon into the air over her hometown of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. On one side of the balloon, she had written “Please return to Laura Buxton,” and on the other side, her home address. A few weeks later, a man 140 miles away in Milton Lilbourne found the balloon stuck in the hedge that separated his farm from the next-door neighbors. He noticed Laura Buxton’s name and address and immediately took the balloon to the neighbors’ house, showing it to the 10-year-old girl who lived there…whose name was also Laura Buxton.

Laura Buxton from Milton Lilbourne wrote Laura Buxton from Stoke-on-Trent to let her know that she had found the balloon. Thinking this coincidence was simply too amazing to be true, they decided they had to meet in person. And that’s when things got really weird.

On the day of the meeting, the two girls wore the same outfit – a pink sweater and jeans. The girls were the same height, which was unusual because they were both tall for their age. They both had brown hair and wore it in the same style. They both had three-year old black Labrador Retrievers at home, as well as gray pet rabbits. They both brought their guinea pigs, which were the same color and even had the same orange markings on their hindquarters. It was almost as though these two Laura Buxtons were the same person.

The strange events surrounding their meeting have helped the girls form a strong bond, and they remain friends eight years later. Both feel the circumstances that brought them together are too significant to be written off as mere coincidence.

FaceBook and the Gift of Life.

Owner — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 20:04:02 +0000

Editor's Note: FaceBook is about sharing.... ideas, events, pictures, even a little verbal support when you need it. But when a big-hearted New England mayor saw an opportunity to help her FaceBook friend, it became an entirely different kind of sharing. Mayor Almon would have to share her gift at a hospital.

April Capone Almon, mayor of East Haven, Ct., seems to be a woman who truly dedicates herself to her constituents, and, indeed, to her Facebook friends. And when I say "herself," I really mean "her self."

April Capone Almon

Almon has more than 1,600 Facebook friends, but as she waded through her friends' status updates, she discovered that one of them needed something quite urgently: a kidney.

According to the Associated Press, Mayor Almon didn't know Carlos Sanchez well. She hadn't been aware that he was ill, nor that his diabetes had caused the need for a new kidney.

So, in this new world of everything being public, you might imagine that Mayor Almon, seeing a few votes wafting in the wind, put a message on Sanchez's wall. Ah, no.

"I sent him a private message and just said, 'Hey, I'll try. I'll get tested,'" she told the AP. "I really felt from the very beginning that I was going to be a match and a donor. I don't know why, but I just knew it."

44-year-old Sanchez only confessed to his urgent need on Facebook because his doctor suggested the social network might be a reasonable hope, and when he received Almon's private note, he wasn't exactly convinced it was real. After all, elections were due shortly.

Still, Almon went through with the testing and her hunch turned out to be correct. On April 8, doctors removed Almon's kidney and gave it to Sanchez. Both are reportedly doing just fine.

"I don't want people to see this as something larger than life," Almon told the AP. "There's nothing special about me. Anybody can try to do this, and if it's meant to be, you'll be a match and a donor and you can really help someone."

Almon reportedly didn't use her actions to try to win the election. She didn't create publicity for herself at a time when some might imagine she would have enjoyed it. And she won the election anyway.

Facebook is an excellent place for people to meet, communicate, and even create new bonds. And this is a truly rare, beautiful and human story in which social networking played a vital part. However, there's also something quite heartening that, at least for these two human beings, they made a choice on what information should be made public and what should stay private. That choice is something we should surely all enjoy and respect. That includes Facebook.