your ramen for the soul

  There is a story many years ago of an elementary teacher. Her name was Mrs. Thompson. And as she stood in front of her fifth grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children a lie. Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same . But that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard. Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he didn't play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath. And Teddy could be unpleasant. It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X's and then putting a big "F" at the top of his papers. At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child's past records and she put Teddy Stoddard's off until last. However, when she reviewed his file,

  My alarm went off, it was Sunday again. I was sleepy and tired, m y one day to sleep in. But the guilt I would feel, t he rest of the day Would have been too much s o I'd go and I'd pray. I showered and shaved,  I adjusted my tie. I got there and sat i n a pew just in time. Bowing my head in prayer a s I closed my eyes. I saw the shoe of the man next to me t ouching my own. I sighed. With plenty of room on either side,  I thought, "Why must our soles touch?" It bothered me, his shoe touching mine b ut it didn't bother him much. A prayer began: "Our Father"... I thought, "This man with the shoes  has no pride. They're dusty, worn, and scratched, e ven worse, there are holes on the side!" "Thank You for blessings," the prayer went on. The shoe man said  a quiet "Amen." I tried to focus on the prayer b ut my thoughts were on his shoes again. Aren't we supposed to look our best w hen walking through that door? "We

This is a story of two friends who were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand “Today my best friend slapped me in the face”. They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone “Today my best friend saved my life”. The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?” The other friend replied “When someone hurts us we should write it down in the sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.” Moral of the Story: The reality is