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My pastor told the story printed below in one of his homilies. I learned a good lesson from it.

In a country church, an altar boy was serving the priest at Sunday mass. When he accidentally dropped the cruet of wine, the village priest slapped the boy and shouted, "Leave the church and don't come back!" That boy became Josip Broz Tito, the Communist leader. In the cathedral of a large, inner city church, the altar boy accidentally dropped the cruet of wine. With a twinkle in his eye, the Bishop told the boy, "One day you will be a priest." That boy grew up to be Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

Paul

Oh my! Talk about goose bumps.

That is an awesome story. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. Jesus is love!

God is so neat. When my children were young and spilt something, and if I would yell at them for doing so. (Boy, did I learn not to partake in that frustration.) I can assure you within minutes I would have an accident and spill something. A lesson well learned not to yell at others mistakes. I guess it is kind of like take the plank out our your eye before you worry about the splinter in someone elses.

The other day my youngest son, now 20, broke the glass covering to a small stone encrusted monstrance, it is a lovely thing. Not real of course, but his Godfather who is a priest had given it to us years ago. Oh I just wanted to yell, but it seemed there was this small quiet voice inside saying to me it is ok, what are you going to do? He was so apolgetic. All i could tell him is it was ok!

Humm makes me wonder what foolish thing I would have done if I had opened my mouth. Nevermind I don't really want to know. :rolleyes:

Pani Rose

When our kids were small we used to have what we called the 'spilled milk' test. Hardly a day went by when the milk (or something else) didn't get spilled. And that can get frustrating when you are trying to get through a meal with a reasonable amount of peace and order. Anyway, if we could keep from yelling we considered ourselves to have passed the 'spilled milk' test. But sometimes we didn't pass.

Once a religious education teacher of our son's took me aside and said our son had shared in her group that he didn't like it when I yelled at him. She was an older woman (at least I thought sixty was old then) who humbly shared with me that she had yelled at her kids years before and later regretted it. I thank God for that warning from that good woman. It made me much more aware of my own reactions and how my son felt.

I did better with my kids after that and am doing very well with the grand kids.

Blessings,

Mary Jo...

Oohhh God is so good!

Maybe somewhere a young mom will read these thoughts and learn so she doesn't have to learn the way we did.

Pani Rose

PS
I sure am glad you got a lap top for Christmas, tell your hubby thanks!