Find the cause of the problem and do not concentrate in the surface matter, find the root of the problem.

Learn to apologize and forgive.

Pray together in order to be restored.

Apologizing does not always mean that you are wrong

and the other person is right.

It just mean that you value your relationship more than your ego.

Blessings to you as you express your own personality in your walk with God.

I have always been a big golf fan. In fact, I have been to twenty-three straight U.S. Opens. At one point during my cancer treatments, my husband John and I decided to get away from the cold Minnesota winter and took a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona. There was a Senior PGA Tour event called The Tradition being played, and that seemed like just the ticket to lift my spirits.

The first day of the tournament brought out a huge gallery. It was a beautiful day, and I was in heaven. I was standing just off the third tee, behind the fairway ropes, watching my three favorite golfers in the world approach the tee box: Jack Nicklaus, Raymond Floyd and Tom Weiskopf.

Just as they arrived at the tee, the unimaginable happened. A huge gust of wind came up from out of nowhere and blew my hat and hair right off my head and into the middle of the fairway! The thousands of spectators lining the fairway fell into an awkward silence, all eyes on me. Even my golf idols were watching me, as my hair was in their flight path. I was mortified! Embarrassed as I was, I knew I couldn’t just stand there. Someone had to do something to get things moving again.

So I took a deep breath, went under the ropes and out into the middle of the fairway. I grabbed my hat and hair, nestled them back on my head as best I could. Then I turned to the golfers and loudly announced, “Gentlemen, the wind is blowing from left to right.”

They said the laughter could be heard all the way to the nineteenth hole.

By Christine Clifford

Jean’s father was a crop duster pilot in the little farming community in Northern California where she was raised, and Jean was totally captivated by airplanes and flying. She poured her heart into her report and included all of her dreams; she wanted to crop dust, make parachute jumps, seed clouds and be an airline pilot. Her paper came back with an “F” on it. The teacher told her it was a “fairy tale” and that none of the occupations she listed were women’s jobs. Jean was crushed and humiliated.

She showed her father the paper, and he told her that of course she could become a pilot. “Look at Amelia Earhart,” he said. “That teacher doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

But as the years went by, Jean was beaten down by the discouragement and negativity she encountered whenever she talked about her career-”Girls can’t become airline pilots; never have, never will. You’re not smart enough, you’re crazy. That’s impossible. “-until finally Jean gave up.

In her senior year of high school, her English teacher was a Mrs. Dorothy Slaton. Mrs. Slaton was an uncompromising, demanding teacher with high standards and a low tolerance for excuses. She refused to treat her students like children, instead expecting them to behave like the responsible adults they would have to be to succeed in the real world after graduation. Jean was scared of her at first but grew to respect her firmness and fairness.

One day Mrs. Slaton gave the class an assignment. “What do you think you’ll be doing 10 years from now?” Jean thought about the assignment. Pilot? No way. Flight attendant? I’m not pretty enough-they’d never accept me. Wife? What guy would want me? Waitress? I could do that. That felt safe, so she wrote it down.

Mrs. Slaton collected the papers and nothing more was said. Two weeks later, the teacher handed back the assignments, face down on each desk, and asked this question: “If you had unlimited finances, unlimited access to the finest schools, unlimited talents and abilities, what would you do?”

Jean felt a rush of the old enthusiasm, and with excitement she wrote down all her old dreams. When the students stopped writing, the teacher asked, “How many students wrote the same thing on both sides of the paper?” Not one hand went up.

The next thing that Mrs. Slaton said changed the course of Jean’s life. The teacher leaned forward over her desk and said, “I have a little secret for you all. You do have unlimited abilities and talents. You do have access to the finest schools, and you can arrange unlimited finances if you want something badly enough. This is it! When you leave school, if you don’t go for your dreams, no one will do it for you. You can have what you want if you want it enough.”

The hurt and fear of years of discouragement crumbled in the face of the truth of what Mrs. Slaton had said. Jean felt exhilarated and a little scared. She stayed after class and went up to the teacher’s desk. Jean thanked Mrs. Slaton and told her about her dream of becoming a pilot. Mrs. Slaton half rose and slapped the desk top. “Then do it!” she said.

So Jean did. It didn’t happen overnight. It took l0 years of hard work, facing opposition that ranged from quiet skepticism to outright hostility. It wasn’t in Jean’s nature to stand up for herself when someone refused or humiliated her; instead, she would quietly try to find another way.

She became a private pilot and then got the necessary ratings to fly air freight and even commuter planes, but always as a copilot. Her employers were openly hesitant about promoting her-because she was a woman. Even her father advised her to try something else. “It’s impossible,” he said. “Stop banging your head against the wall!”

But Jean answered, “Dad, I disagree. I believe that things are going to change, and I want to be at the head of the pack when they do.”

Jean went on to do everything her third-grade teacher said Was a fairy tale-she did some crop dusting, made a few hundred parachute jumps and even seeded clouds for a summer Season as a weather modification pilot. In 1978, she became one of the first three female pilot trainees ever accepted by United Airlines and one of only 50 women airline pilots in the nation at the time. Today, Jean Harper is a Boeing 737 captain for United.

It was the power of one well-placed positive word, one spark of encouragement from a woman Jean respected, that gave that uncertain young girl the strength and faith to pursue her dream.

By Carol Kline with dean Harper

We Chinese have a saying “If a man plants melons, he will reap melons; if he sows beans, he will reap beans.” And this is true of every man’s life: good begets good, and evil leads to evil.

True enough, the sun shines on the saint and sinner alike, and too often it seems that the wicked wax and prosper. But we can say with certitude that, with the individual as with the nation, the flourishing of the wicked is an illusion, for, unceasingly, life keeps books on us all.

In the end, we are all the sum total of our actions. Character cannot be counterfeited, nor can it be put on and cast off as if it were a garment to meet the whim of the moment. Like the markings on wood which are ingrained in the very heart of the tree, character requires time and nurture for growth and development.

Thus also, day by day, we write our own destiny, for inexorably we become what we do. This, I believe, is the supreme logic and law of life.

That costs the least and does the most, is just a pleasant smile.

The smile that bubbles from the heart that loves its fellow men,

While drive away the clouds of gloom and coax the sun again.

It’s full of worth and goodness, too, with manly kindness blent,

It’s worth a million dollars, and it doesn’t cost a cent.

There is no room for sadness when we see a cheery smile;

It always has the same good look; it’s never out of style;

It nerves us on to try again when failure makes us blue;

The dimples of encouragement are good for me and you.

It pays the highest interest—for it is merely lent;

It’s worth a million dollars, and it doesn’t cost a cent.

A smile comes very easy—you can wrinkle up with cheer,

A hundred times before you can squeeze out a salty tear;

It ripples out, moreover, to the heartstrings that will tug,

And always leaves an echo that is very like a hug.

So, smile away! Folks understand what by a smile is meant;
It’s worth a million dollars, and it doesn’t cost a cent.