June 2003: Page 1, 2, 3, 4

Submitters Perspective

Page 3

Attitude

Contributor’s note: Received this parable from a colleague at work - author or original source unknown.

It is probably an allegory, but there are some good parallels to what we believe in this.

I took the liberty of editing it just slightly and put my comments in [brackets].

The 92-year-old lady moved to a nursing home today. Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready.

As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, her escort provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. “I love it,” she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

“Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room .... just wait.” “That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she replied. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged ... it’s how I arrange my mind. [Happiness is submission to God Alone—it is a priority we choose to make, or how we choose to arrange our minds.]

I have already decided to love it ... “It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I’ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I’ve stored away ... just for this time in my life.

Old age is like a bank account ... you withdraw from it what you’ve put in... So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories. [See ending]

No one can go back and make a brand new start. Anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending. [God never changes the condition of anyone unless they choose to change.]
God didn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way. [God promises us victory.]

Disappointments are like road bumps, they slow you down a bit but you enjoy the smooth road afterwards. Don’t stay on the bumps too long. Move on!

When you feel down because you didn’t get what you want, just sit tight and be happy, because God has something better to give you. [Don’t grieve over what you didn’t get, because you weren’t meant to have it.]
When something happens to you, good or bad, consider what it means. There’s a purpose to life’s events, to teach you how to laugh more or not to cry too hard. [Or to give thanks for the good, and ask for patience and understanding for the bad.]

You can’t make someone love you, [or follow you]; all you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to the person to realize your worth.

We spend too much time looking for the right person to love or finding fault with those we already love, when instead we should be perfecting the love we give. [Do we idolize our ideal of the perfect person, whether it is a spouse, our child, a parent, or someone else? Or maybe make those same people in our lives miserable for the same reason - we idolize our fantasies of what we want others to be?]

Note: This story is very touching, and filled with good advice, but we should consider it in a broader context. Our lives should be a “bank account” for the Hereafter. Are we depositing for this life, as this story advises us to do, or are we depositing for the next life, which is what God advises us to do? Will we be able to withdraw from our “bank account” only in this life, or we will be able withdraw from our “bank account” in the Hereafter?
We should all be concerned with our “portfolios” and our “net worth”.
Do we each have a “certificate of deposit” or CD waiting to “rollover” in the Hereafter? The Quran is the ultimate “financial planner” for our future.
Happy savings to all!

Anna