That was what I was hoping to hear! Thanks for all your help and
efforts. Someone, emailed me this good story! Some of you out there
may want to ponder for a moment and perhaps use it someday soon.
WHO PACKED YOUR PARACHUTE?
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 him
or her, gives a compliment, or just does something nice for no reason.
Charles Plumb, a US Naval Academy graduate, was a jet pilot in
Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a
surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy
hands. He was captured and spent 6 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 might have 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 on 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 he or she needs to make it
through the day. Plumb 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.
His experience reminds us all to prepare ourselves to weather
whatever storms lie ahead. As you go through this week, this month,
this year...recognize people who pack your parachute! |
