|
A lovely story - I think this list does so much for each other that
there are a lot of parachutes out there!
Rhonda
THINKING OF YOU TODAY
Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam.
After 75 combined
missions, his plane was destroyed by a
surface-to-air missile. Plumb
ejected and parachuted into enemy
hands. He was captured and spent
six years in a communist
Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal
and now lectures on
lessons learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and
his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man
at another table came
up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters
in Vietnam from
the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"
"How
in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.
"I packed your
parachute," the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise
and
gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it
worked!"
Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your
chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't
be here today."
Plumb
couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says,
"I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy uniform: a white
hat,
a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how
many times
I might have seen him and not even said 'Good morning,
how are you?'
or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot
and he was just a
sailor." Plumb thought of the many hours the
sailor had spent at a long
wooden table in the bowels of the ship,
carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute,
holding in his hands each time the fate
of someone he didn't know.
Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?"
Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it
through
the day. He also points out that he needed many kinds
of parachutes
when his plane was shot down over enemy territory - he
needed his
physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional
parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these
supports before reaching safety.
Sometimes in the daily
challenges that life gives us, we miss what is
really
important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you,
congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to
them,
give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason. As
you go
through this week, this month, this year, recognize people
who pack
your parachutes.
*****
I am sending you this as
my way of thanking you for your part in packing
my parachute!!! And I
hope you will send it on to those who have helped
pack
yours!
Sometimes, we wonder why friends keep forwarding jokes to
us without
writing a word, maybe this could explain it: When you are
very busy, but
still want to keep in touch, guess what you do--you
forward jokes. And
to let you know that you are still
remembered, you are still important, you
are still loved, you are
still cared for, guess what you get? A forwarded
joke.
So my friend, next time when you get a joke, don't think that
you've
been sent just another forwarded joke, but that you've been
thought of
today and your friend on the other end of your computer
wanted to send
you a smile, just helping you pack your parachute.
|
IncrediMail - Email has finally evolved -
Click
Here
