An Inspirational Story
(Ms Ritu Sinha)
A story is told about a soldier who was
finally coming home after having fought in Vietnam. He called his parents from
San Francisco. "Mom
and Dad, I’m coming home, but I’ve a favor to ask. I have a friend I’d like to
bring home with me." "Sure," they replied, "we’d love to
meet him".
"There’s something you should
know," the son continued, "he was hurt pretty badly in the fighting.
He stepped on a land mine and lost an arm and a leg. He has nowhere else to go,
and I want him to come live with us."
"I’m sorry to hear that, son.
Maybe we can help him find somewhere to live." "No, Mom and Dad, I
want him to live with us."
"Son," said the father,
"you don’t know what you’re asking. Someone with such a handicap would be
a terrible burden on us. We have our own lives to live, and we can’t let
something like this interfere with our lives. I think you should just come home
and forget about this guy. He’ll find a way to live on his own."
At that point, the son hung up the
phone. The parents heard nothing more from him. A few days later, however, they
received a call from the San Francisco
police. Their son had died after falling from a building, they were told. The
police believed it was suicide. The grief-stricken parents flew to San Francisco and were
taken to the city morgue to identify the body of their son. They recognized
him, but to their horror they also discovered something they didn’t know, their
son had only one arm and one leg.
The parents in this story are like many
of us. We find it easy to love those who are good looking or fun to have
around, but we don’t like people who inconvenience us or make us feel
uncomfortable. We would rather stay away from people who aren’t as healthy,
beautiful, or smart as we are.
Thankfully, there’s someone who won’t
treat us that way. Someone who loves us with an unconditional love that
welcomes us into the forever family, regardless of how messed up we are.
Tonight, before you tuck yourself in
for the night, say a little prayer that God will give you the strength you need
to accept people as they are, and to help us all be more understanding of those
who are different from us!!!
