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Here is your Saturday STORY on: SOLVING PROBLEMS: Do what ever you need to do; and then do one bit more. Too many times in our life do we look back and wonder whether we did enough, yet we could simply change our philosophy and do that extra inch. This little bit extra is what makes all the difference, whether that is to care a little bit more or to offer your services for another five minutes. It's that extra effort that people remember. How can giving a little bit of extra help solve problems? If you give you receive. What ever may trouble you today and no answer is forthcoming to resolve that problem, then you can be assured that if you give to others that answer WILL arrive. It is as if a greater force is at work. Your problems are answered as a direct consequence on how you shape up helping others. Today's story is about a girl who is affected by a disability. But as she grows to accept it herself, her interaction with others improves. So it would appear to be also true that to help others you may need to help yourself first. LOVE AND MRS LEONARD I grew up knowing I was different, and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate, and when I started to go to school, my classmates - who were constantly teasing - made it clear to me how I must look to others: a little girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth, and hollow and somewhat garbled speech. I couldn't even blow up a balloon without holding my nose, and when I bent to drink from a fountain, the water spilled out of my nose. When my schoolmates asked, "What happened to your lip?" I'd tell them that I'd fallen as a baby and cut it on a piece of glass. Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. By the age of seven I was convinced that no one outside my own family could ever love me. Or even like me. And then I entered the second grade, and Mrs. Leonard's class. I never knew what her first name was - just Mrs. Leonard. She was round and pretty and fragrant, with chubby arms and shining brown hair and warm dark eyes that smiled even on rare occasions when her mouth did not. Everyone adored her. But no one came to love her more than I did; and for a special reason. The time came for the annual "hearing tests" give at our school. I was barely able to hear anything out of one ear, and was not about to reveal yet another problem that would single me out as different. And so I cheated. I had learned to watch other children and raised my hand when they did during group testing. The "whisper test" however, required a different kind of deception: Each child would go to the door of the classroom, turn sideways, close one ear with a finger, and the teacher would whisper something from her desk, which the child would repeat. Then the same thing was done for the other ear. I had discovered in kindergarten that nobody checked to see how tightly the untested ear was being covered, so I merely pretended to block mine. As usual, I was last, but all through the testing I wondered what Mrs. Leonard might say to me. I knew from previous years that she whispered things like "The sky is blue" or "Do you have new shoes?" My turn came up. I turned my bad ear to her, plugging up the other solidly with my finger, then gently backed my finger out enough to be able to hear. I waited and then the words that God had surely put into her mouth, seven words that changed my life forever. Mrs. Leonard, the pretty, fragrant teacher I adored, said softly, "I wish you were my little girl" (Unknown Author) QUOTE: 'No one ever attains very eminent success by simply doing what is required of him; it is the amount of excellence of what is over and above the required that determines the greatness of ultimate distinction.' (Charles Kendall Adams)

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