A man's daughter had asked the parish priest to come and pray with her father. When the priest arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his bed. The priest assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit.

"I guess you were expecting me," he said.

"No, who are you?" said the father.

The priest told him his name and then remarked, "I see the empty chair; I figured you knew I was going to show up."

"Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?"

拼图d, the priest shut the door.

"I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man. "But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head.

"I abandoned any attempt at prayer, until one day about four years ago my best friend said to me, 'Johnny, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here is what I suggest: Sit down in a chair and place an empty chair in front of you. In faith see Jesus in that chair. It's not spooky because he promised: 'I'll be with you always.' Then just speak to him in the same way you're doing with me right now.'

"So I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm."

The priest was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old man to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him, anointed him with oil, and returned to the church. Two nights later the daughter called to tell the priest that her daddy had died that afternoon.

"Did he die in peace?" he asked.

"Yes, when I left the house about two o'clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me he loved me and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead. But there was something strange about his death. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head in the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?"

The priest wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I wish we could all go like that."

There was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave him a bag
of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, to hammer a
nail in the back fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails
into the fence. Then it gradually dwindled down. He discovered it
was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the
fence.

Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He
told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now
pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.
The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father
that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand
and led him to the fence. He said, "You have done well, my son, but
look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same.
When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one.
You can put a knife in a man and draw it out.

It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is
still there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one. Friends are
a very rare jewel, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to
succeed. They lend an ear, they share a word of praise, and they
always want to open their hearts to us.

But your best friend of all should be Jesus. Show your friends how
much you care. Be like Jesus.