A Feel Good Story (Joe Widick)

Here is another installment by Jow Widick. Pray for me in China!

Do you know that the US Navy makes house calls? Fourteen year old Laura was on a cruise with her parents when her appendix burst. The pain was terrible! The captain of the cruise ship sent out a distress call. Luckily the USS Ronald Reagan happened to be in the “nautical neighborhood” because of a training exercise. They were about 500 miles away. It took the aircraft carrier all night to get within 175 miles of the cruise ship. At that point they sent a helicopter which in 45 minutes was able to reach the cruise ship. As the helicopter hovered over the cruise ship, they realized there was not enough room to land, so they had to lower one of the sailors onto the deck in a basket. Laura was then loaded into the basket and lifted to the helicopter, where a medic began tending to her needs. She was flown back to the USS Ronald Reagan where emergency surgery was performed. Two hours later Laura was in recovery. The sailors treated her like a celebrity, showering her with souvenirs. The navy even shuttled Laura’s mom to the aircraft carrier.

I don’t know how many read this story? It was in the Tennessean on Christmas day on page 21. Not headline or front page stories, just one of those stories that make you feel good. It was a joy to find in the paper and read. It was a story about a positive acts not one that glorified some negative act.

I don’t know what is in store for each of us in the coming years. But I would guess that through the years there will be several of those feel good stories that will take place, that many if not most of us will never know about. There may be a group of ladies who volunteer to help feed a stranger in a local nursing home. It will be workers spending a Saturday helping to build a home for Habitat. It may be a group of men traveling hundreds of miles to build a home for needy children in Honduras. Maybe it will be a husband and wife visiting someone who is shut-in and lonely. It could be a teenager who invites someone to Bible class for the very first time. Maybe it will be a teen who says at a retreat “I want to be baptized!” It could be that one individual who is down on their luck and needs a helping hand on Monday night, who learns that there is someone who cares. Could there be someone who will be influenced to be a better husband or wife at one of our men’s or ladies classes?

When Jesus was anointed with the precious perfume at the home of Simon, he said concerning the woman “she did what she could.” I don’t know about you, but to hear our savior say that to us would make for a “feel good story.”

Prayer Thought: Help me each day to do what I can do to make a difference in the lives of others.