A

    The most popular food in America was invented because a cook got angry. George Crum was a cook at a restaurant in Saratoga Springs, New York. One day in 1853, a customer(顾客) who had ordered fried(油炸的) potatoes sent them back to the kitchen. He wanted the cook to slice(切) them thinner and fry them longer. George Crum had a bad temper(脾气), and he thought the potatoes were fine the way he made them. To teach the customer a lesson, he sliced potatoes very thin and fried them until they were crispy(脆的). But instead of being angry, the customer loved the new fried potatoes. He asked for more. Other people who tried them like them too, and customers kept asking for them. Far many years, people called them Saratoga chips after the town where they were first made.

    Even now, after more than 150 years, potato chips are very popular. At least one of every ten potatoes grown in the United States is made into potato chips. So if you like potato chips, be glad George Crum had a bad temper!

B

    Once upon a time, a man punished （惩罚）his 5-year-old daughter for using up the family' s expensive gold wrapping (包装 ) paper. Money was always not enough, and he became even more upset when on Christmas Eve, he saw that the child had pasted ( 贴) the gold paper to decorate a shoebox to put under the Christmas tree.

    The next morning the little girl, filled with excitement, brought the gift box to her father and said, "This is for you, Daddy!"

    As he opened the box, the father was sorry for his earlier behavior.

But after he opened it, he found it was empty and again he was angry. "Don't you know, young lady," he said, "when you give someone a present there's supposed to be something inside the package!"

    The little girl looked up at him with tears running from her eyes and said, "Daddy, it's not empty. I blew kisses into it until it was all full."

    When the father heard this, he fell on his knees and put his arm around his dear little girl. He begged her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger.

    An accident took the life of the child only a short time later. It is told that the father kept that little gold box by his bed for all the year of his life. Whenever he was sad or faced difficult problems he would open the box, take out an imaginary kiss, and remember the love of this beautiful child who had put it there.

    In a very real sense, each of us as human beings have been given an invisible golden box filled with love and kisses from our children, family, friends and God. This is the most expensive possession (财产) anyone could hold.

    I have a friend named Monty Roberts who owns a horse ranch(牧马场). The last time I was there he told me his story. When he was young, his family was too poor to have a house to live in.As a result , when he was in high school, all the students were asked to write a paper about what they wanted to be and do when they grew up. That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing his goal of owning a horse ranch. He also drew a picture to show a 4,000-square-foot house that would sit on a beautiful farm. The next day he handed it in to his teacher. Two days later he received his paper back. On the front page was a large red F. Roberts asked, “Why did I receive an F?” He teacher said, “This is an unrealistic dream for a young boy like you. Owning a horse ranch requires a lot of money.” Then the teacher added, “If you will rewrite this paper with a more realistic goal, I will reconsider your grade.”

    The boy went home and thought about it for a long and hard time. He asked his father what he should do. His father said, “ Look, son, you have to make up your own mind on this. However, I think it is a very important decision for you.”Finally, after sitting with it for a week, the boy turned in the same paper, making no changes at all. He told his teacher “you could keep the F and I still keep my dream”.

    He tells me this story because I am sitting in his 4,000-square-foot house in the middle of the 200-acre horse ranch. “I still have that school paper now.” He added, “The best part of the story is that two years ago that  teacher brought 30 kids to camp out on my ranch for a week.” When the teacher was leaving, he said, Look, Monty, I can tell you this now. When I was your teacher, I was something of a dream stealer.During those years I stole a lot of kids' dreams. Luckily, you had enough gumption not to give up on yours. .”

    A little boy was playing in his sandbox on a Saturday morning．While he was building roads and houses in the soft sand, he discovered a large stone in the middle of the sandbox．

    The little boy pushed and pulled, but every time he thought he had made some progress, the stone tipped (倾斜) and then fell back into the sandbox．The little boy tried his best, but his only reward was to have the stone roll back．

    Finally the boy cried．All that time the boy's father watched him from his living room window．At the moment tears fell, his father came to the boy and the sandbox．Gently but surely he said, "Son, why didn't you use all the strength that you had?" The boy said sadly, "But I did, Daddy, I did! I used all the strength that I had! No, son," corrected the father．"You didn't ask me．"With that, the father reached down, picked up the stone and removed it from the sandbox．

    Do you have "stones" in your life that need to be removed? Are you discovering that you are too weak to lift them? There is ONE who is always ready to give us the strength we need．Isn't it funny how we try so hard to do things on our own?