I fell ill last week prompting a visit to the ER and lots of morphine. Today makes 8 days out of commission. My wife and children are so good to me, even our 9mo makes my excrutiating pain easy to bare. They remind me of this inspiring story.....
Charles Plumb was a US Navy 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 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.
My family, this post is my way of thanking you for packing my parachute. And I hope that you, my readers, will send this story on to those who have helped pack yours!
Have a Grate(full) Day.
When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.
I was tagged on Tuesday by my wife Amy for 6 random things about myself. Don't forget to see my Wordless Wednesday post below...
1. I was born on my father's birthday.
2. 8 years ago, in order to please my children and my mom, we spent about a year to make the ultimate wish list of "The Perfect Wife and Mother". Since I personally was not looking to get married, I made sure it was a very detailed, very picky, very LOOoonngg list. 5 years 8 months ago my children met a lady who matched every single item on our list and then some. 2 months later we were married. It turns out that our list pales in comparison to our amazing wife and mother. Blessed we are!
3. I've never had to buy a Disney ticket thanks to my brother who is an Imagineer.
4. When I was 7 years old, I shut off the microphone of a visiting preacher who was misleading my father's congregation. My dad caught me red handed in the sound room. Since the chapel seated a couple thousand people and most of them could no longer hear the preacher anyway, my father simply went back into the chapel and closed the service and everyone went home.
5. The worse moment of my life started when I saw my oldest daughter's ATV go off the side of a mountain road in Colorado. It ended 2 minutes later when I saw her limp body begin to move as I frantically hiked down toward her 100 feet below.
6. The best moment of my life is: NOW.
Tag you are it!
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The Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules to your blog.
3. Write 6 random things about yourself.
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person you have tagged know by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is posted.
