Two Traveling Angels
Two traveling angels stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family.
The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion's guest room.
Instead the angels were given a space in the cold basement. As they made their bed on the hard floor, the older angel saw a hole in the wall and repaired it. When the younger angel asked why, the older angel replied, "Things aren't always what they seem."
The next night the pair came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife.
After sharing what little food they had, the couple let the angels sleep in their bed where they could have a good night's rest.
When the sun came up the next morning, the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field.
The younger angel was infuriated and asked the older angel, "How could you have let this happen!? The first man had everything, yet you helped him." she accused. "The second family had so little, but was willing to share everything, and you let their cow die."
"Things aren't always what they seem." the older angel replied.
"When we stayed in the basement of the mansion, I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall. Since the owner was so obsessed with greed and unwilling to share his good fortune, I sealed the wall so he wouldn't find it."
"Then last night as we slept in the farmer's bed, the angel of death came for his wife. I gave her the cow instead. Things aren't always what they seem."
Sometimes this is exactly what happens when things don't turn out the way you think they should. If you have faith, you just need to trust that every outcome is always to your advantage. You might not know it until some time later.
Things aren't always what they seem.
Harvard
A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into the president of Harvard's outer office.
The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods country folks had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge. She frowned. "We want to see the president, "the man said softly. "He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped. "We'll wait," the lady replied.
For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't. And the secretary grew frustrated and finally
decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted to do.
"Maybe if they just see you for a few minutes, they'll leave, "she told him. He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, but he detested gingham and homespun suits cluttering his office.
The president, stern-faced with dignity, strutted toward the couple. The lady told him, "We had a son that attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard, and was very happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. And my husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him somewhere on campus." The president wasn't touched, he was shocked.
"Madam," he said gruffly, "we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery."
"Oh, no," the lady explained quickly, "we don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would give a building to Harvard." The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, "A building!! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical plant at Harvard!!"
For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. He could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?" Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.
Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the University that bears their name...a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about. "You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them or to them."
- Malcolm Forbes
The Cold Within
Six humans trapped by happenstance In black and bitter cold. Each one possessed a stick of wood, or so the story's told. Their dying fire in need of logs, the first woman held hers back for on the faces around the fire, she noticed one was black.
The next man looking cross the way saw one not of his church, and couldn't bring himself to give the fire his stick of birch.
The third man sat in tattered clothes; he gave his coat a hitch. Why should his log be put to use to warm the idle rich?
The rich man just sat back and thought of the wealth he had in store. And how to keep what he had earned from the lazy poor.
The black man's face bespoke revenge as the fire passed from his sight, for all he saw in his stick of wood was a chance to spite the white.
And the last man of this forlorn group did naught except for gain. Giving only to those who gave was how he played the game. The logs held tight in death's still hands was proof of human sin. They didn't die from the cold without, they died from the cold within.
