Friends can come in all shapes and sizes… and at times even from those that might have been our “enemies.” What we have in our lives, we choose to have there.

- a story by Suzie Eller passed on from Sandy Pofahl’s 52 Best

Jack tossed the papers on my desk — his eyebrows knit into a straight line as he glared at me. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He jabbed a finger at the proposal.

“Next time you want to change anything, ask me first,” he said, turning on his heels and leaving me stewing in anger.

How dare he treat me like that I thought. I had changed one long sentence, and corrected grammar — something I thought I was paid to do. It’s not that I hadn’t been warned. The other women, who had served in my place before me, called him names I couldn’t repeat.

One co-worker took me aside the first day. “He’s personally responsible for two different secretaries leaving the firm,” she whispered.

As the weeks went by, I grew to despise Jack. It was against everything I believed in — turn the other cheek and love your enemies. But Jack quickly slapped a verbal insult on any cheek turned his way. I prayed about it, but to be honest, I wanted to put him in his place, not love him.

One day, another of his episodes left me in tears. I stormed into his office, prepared to lose my job if needed, but not before I let the man know how I felt. I opened the door and Jack glanced up.

“What?” he said abruptly. Suddenly I knew what I had to do. After all, he deserved it. I sat across from him.

“Jack, the way you’ve been treating me is wrong. I’ve never had anyone speak to me that way. As a professional, it’s wrong, and it’s wrong for me to allow it to continue,” I said.

Jack snickered nervously and leaned back in his chair. I closed my eyes briefly. God help me, I prayed.

“I want to make you a promise. I will be a friend,” I said. “I will treat you as you deserve to be treated, with respect and kindness. You deserve that,” I said. “Everybody does.”

I slipped out of the chair and closed the door behind me. Jack avoided me the rest of the week. Proposals, specs, and letters appeared on my desk while I was at lunch, and the corrected versions were not seen again. I brought cookies to the office one day and left a batch on Jack’s desk.

Another day I left a note. “Hope your day is going great,” it read.

Over the next few weeks, Jack reappeared. He was reserved, but there were no other episodes. Co-workers cornered me in the break room.

“Guess you got to Jack,” they said. “You must have told him off good.” I shook my head.

“Jack and I are becoming friends,” I said in faith. I refused to talk about him. Every time I saw Jack in the hall, I smiled at him. After all, that’s what friends do.

One year after our “talk,” I discovered I had breast cancer. I was 32, the mother of three beautiful young children, and scared. The cancer had metastasized to my lymph nodes and the statistics were not great for long-term survival.

After surgery, I visited with friends and loved ones who tried to find the right words to say. No one knew what to say. Many said the wrong things. Others wept, and I tried to encourage them. I clung to hope.

The last day of my hospital stay, the door darkened and Jack stood awkwardly on the threshold. I waved him in with a smile and he walked over to my bed and, without a word, placed a bundle beside me. Inside lay several bulbs.

“Tulips,” he said. I smiled, not understanding. He cleared his throat.

If you plant them when you get home, they’ll come up next spring.” He shuffled his feet. “I just wanted you to know that I think you’ll be there to see them when they come up.”

Tears clouded my eyes and I reached out my hand. “Thank you,” I whispered.

Jack grasped my hand and gruffly replied, “You’re welcome. You can’t see it now, but next spring you’ll see the colors I picked out for you.” He turned and left without another word.

I have seen those red and white striped tulips push through the soil every spring for over ten years now. In fact, this September the doctor will declare me cured.

I’ve seen my children graduate from high school and enter college. In a moment when I prayed for just the right word, a man with very few words said all the right things.

After all, that’s what friends do.

Some of the facts below are well known and others, not so much. Each one is important but, in the aggregate, they paint a pretty vivid picture of…

How many of these facts did you already know?

• As you walk up the steps to the building that houses the U.S. Supreme Court, near the top of the building you can see a row of the world’s law givers.
   
  Each one is facing the figure in the middle who is Moses holding the Ten Commandments!
   
   
   
   
   
   



• As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
• As you sit inside the courtroom, you can see the wall, right above where the Supreme Court Judges sit, a display of the Ten Commandments!
• There are Bible verses etched in stone on many Federal Buildings and Monuments in Washington.
• James Madison, the fourth president, known as ‘The Father of Our Constitution’ once said:
  ‘We have staked the whole of all our political Institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to The Ten Commandments of God.’
• Every session of Congress begins with a prayer by a minister whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777.
• Fifty-two of the 55 founders of the Constitution were members of the established Orthodox churches in the colonies.
• Thomas Jefferson worried that the courts would overstep their authority and, instead of interpreting the law, would begin making law an oligarchy, which is…
  the rule of few over many. (Does that maybe have a familiar ring?)

How then, have we come to the point where everything that’s been done over the last 200+ years in this country is now suddenly wrong and unconstitutional?

A more important question is… “Why are conservatives in America today so apathetic that we have let it come to this?”

Thanks to our founding fathers, each of us have a vote but, think about this folks… it means nothing to have it, if we don’t use it!

Let me repeat that: It means nothing to be able to vote, if we don’t do it!

Isn’t it time for us to wake up and regain the zeal (and faith) of the great men and women who put all this together for us?

You really need to get involved… I mean seriously involved because the bleeding-heart socialists are rapidly dismantling everything we hold dear about America.

Please, add your voice to this message by leaving a comment. People need to see what loyal Americans are thinking.

If you think that this message is important, please share this post with others. Clicking on the word “Permalink” just below this line will modify the address in your browser window. Copy that and send it to everyone you know. That link will take them right to this post.

The Danish ship, Emma Maersk, is shown in the photos below.

What a ship… no wonder ‘Made-in-China’ is displacing American-made goods so fast. This monster makes it across the Pacific in just 5 days! And, this is one of three ships presently in service, with another two ships commissioned to be completed in 2012!

These ships were commissioned by Wal-Mart to bring all their stuff from China . They hold an incredible 15,000 containers and have a 207 foot deck beam!! The full crew is just 13 people on a ship longer than a US Aircraft Carrier (which has a crew of 5,000).

With its 207′ beam, it is too big to fit through the Panama or Suez Canals so it’s strictly transpacific but, it’s fast… it cruises at 31 knots.

That means that the goods arrive 4 days before the typical container ship (18-20 knots) on a China-to-California run.

91% of Wal-mart products are made in China

This behemoth is hugely competitive even when carrying perishable goods.

The ship was built in five sections. The sections floated together and then welded. The command bridge is higher than a 10-story building and has 11 cargo crane rigs that can operate simultaneously unloading the entire ship in less than two hours.

Additional info:

Built in Denmark
Length – 1,302 ft
Width – 207 ft
Net cargo – 123,200 tons
Engine – 14 cylinders in-line diesel engine (110,000 BHP)
Cargo capacity – 15,000 TEU (1 TEU = 20 cubic feet)
Crew – 13 people !
First Trip – Sept. 08, 2006
Construction cost – US $145,000,000+

Silicone painting applied to the ship’s bottom reduces water resistance and saves 317,000 gallons of diesel per year.

Editorial Comment:
A documentary in late March, 2010 on the History Channel noted that all of these containers are shipped back to China EMPTY.

Let that sink in for just a second or two.

That’s right, there are NO American goods going back to China on these ships.

The solution is really quite obvious, isn’t it? If we start buying virtually everything with a “Made-in-America” stamp on it, that will fix the economic woes of this country.

This is not complicated… buying American creates jobs for Americans!

Note: The slightly higher prices for high quality goods made here would be easy to afford for people with good jobs.

We can’t blame this on Washington. They don’t tell us where to shop.

PS – My guess is that the only people who will actually do this are the ones who have always made a habit of working for a living. People who perpetually exploit our welfare system couldn’t care less about jobs because they wouldn’t take one if it was offered.

That’s my opinion… now let’s hear yours.

Recently I overheard a father and daughter in their last moments together at the airport. The airline had announced her departure and standing near the security gate, they hugged and he said,

“I love you. I wish you enough.”

She in turn said, “Dad, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Dad.”

They kissed and she left. He walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there. I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking,

“Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?”

“Yes, I have,” I replied. “Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?”

“I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead, and the reality is, the next trip back will be for my funeral,” he said.

“When you were saying good-bye I heard you say, ‘I wish you enough.’ May I ask what that means?”

He began to smile. “That’s a wish that has been handed down for many generations within my family. My parents used to say it to everyone.”

He paused for a moment, looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, he smiled even more. “When we said ‘I wish you enough,’ we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them,” he continued and then turning toward me, he shared the following:

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough ‘Hellos’ to get you through the final ‘Good-byes’.

Then he walked away.

I think too often we expect our lives to be perfect, taking for granted all of the “inconveniences” that come our way.

We all need to remember the bad things are as important as the blessings in life because they help to develop character. How would we appreciate joys in life without sorrow?

My friends, I wish you enough.

Written by Bob Perks whose website is www.iwishyouenough.com

A short time ago, I wouldn’t have thought to pose this question. It’s obvious that it helps people, right?

Watch the video and see if your answer changes. You might want to enlarge this to full screen because it is powerful:

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.