See Also:
Beginning of a FAMOUS Hero: The John Tesh Story.
Life Lesson #59 – Be an Encourager.
Mrs. Wilson was a first grade teacher and a music teacher. After school everyday, kids of all ages came by her house one-by-one to take piano lessons and violin lessons. One of the things she sometimes used to HELP teach music was a big purple ball. She had used a marker to make musical symbols all over the ball—things like a treble clef, bass clef, quarter note, half note, whole note, and much more. It was a special ball, and she had spent a lot of time to carefully draw the symbols.
One day, Mrs. Wilson found her granddaughter (who was also one of her students) bouncing on the ball, and using it like an exercise ball in gym class. She was having a lot of fun, but Mrs. Wilson immediately asked her to stop, because she did not want that special ball to be damaged. Well, her granddaughter did stop—for a while—but when Mrs. Wilson wasn’t looking, she started again! And once again, Mrs. Wilson said to stop. Can you believe that over the next two days, she did it three more times?! One time she was even teaching her little brother how to exercise on the ball.
Finally, Mrs. Wilson asked her granddaughter, “If you had something that was very special to you and someone was doing something that could damage it, even though you told them not to, would it hurt your feelings?” Her granddaughter said, “yes Ma’am.” “So, when you do something like that, is it HELPING or hurting?” She hadn’t thought about it like that before, and that’s all it took. She certainly didn’t want to be a person who hurts others. She knew that people who HELP are called HEROES, and from that moment on, THAT is the choice she made.
– Jim Lord