【英文】心灵鸡汤6篇

Soda

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偶淘到的,只是还没有翻译........ [/COLOR]

Soda

What kind of world is it my friend
that little children see?
I wonder if they see God first
because they just believe?

Do they see strength in caring eyes
who watch them as they play -
or maybe love through gentle hands
that guide them on their way?

Do you think they dream of future times
when they would be a king -
or just enjoy their present life
while with their friends they sing?

Do they see the acts of kindness
done for people who are poor?
Is the very best in everyone
what they are looking for?

And when the day is over,
as they close their eyes to sleep,
do they look forward to tomorrow
with its promises to keep?

If this is what the children see,
then it should be no surprise,
the world would be a better place
if we all had children's eyes.

by Tom Krause

Soda

I didn't cry when I learned I was the parent of a mentally handicapped child. I just sat still and didn't say anything while my husband and I were informed that two-year-old Kristi was - as we suspected - retarded.
　　"Go ahead and cry," the doctor advised kindly. "Helps prevent serious emotional difficulties."
　　Serious difficulties notwithstanding, I couldn't cry then nor during the months that followed.
　　When Kristi was old enough to attend school, we enrolled her in our neighborhood school's kindergarten at age seven.
　　It would have been comforting to cry the day I left her in that room full of self-assured, eager, alert five-year-olds.Kristi had spent hour upon hour playing by herself, but this moment, when she was the "different" child among twenty, was probably the loneliest she had ever known.
　　However, positive things began to happen to Kristi in her school, and to her schoolmates, too. When boasting of their own accomplishments, Kristi's classmates always took pains to praise her as well: "Kristi got all her spelling words right today." No one bothered to add that her spelling list was easier than anyone else's.
　　During Kristi's second year in school, she faced a very traumatic experience. The big public event of the term was a competition based on a culmination of the year's music and physical education activities. Kristi was way behind in both　music and motor coordination. My husband and I dreaded the day as well.
　　On the day of the program, Kristi pretended to be sick. Desperately I wanted to keep her home. Why let Kristi fail in a gymnasium filled with parents, students and teachers? What a simple solution it would be just to let my child stay home. Surely missing one program couldn't matter. But my conscience wouldn't let me off that easily. So I practically shoved a pale, reluctant Kristi onto the school bus and proceeded to be
sick myself.
　　Just as I had forced my daughter to go to school, now I forced myself to go to the program. It seemed that it would never be time for Kristi's group to perform. When at last they did, I knew why Kristi had been worried. Her class was divided into relay teams. With her limp and slow, clumsy reactions, she would surely hold up her team.
　　The performance went surprisingly well, though, until it was time for the gunnysack race. Now each child had to climb into a sack from a standing position, hop to a goal line, return and climb out of the sack.
　　I watched Kristi standing near the end of her line of players, looking frantic.
　　But as Kristi's turn to participate neared, a change took place in her team. The tallest boy in the line stepped behind Kristi and placed his hands on her waist. Two other boys stood a little ahead of her. The moment the player in front of Kristi stepped from the sack, those two boys grabbed the sack and held it open while the tall boy lifted Kristi and dropped her neatly into it. A girl in front of Kristi took her hand and supported her briefly until Kristi gained her balance. Then off she hopped, smiling and proud.
　　Amid the cheers of teachers, schoolmates and parents, I crept off by myself to thank God for the warm, understanding people in life who make it possible for my disabled daughter to be like her fellow human beings.
　　Then I finally cried.

By Meg Hill

Soda

When I was in seventh grade, I was a candy striper at a local hospital in my town. I volunteered about thirty to forty hours a week during the summer. Most of the time I
spent there was with Mr. Gillespie. He never had any visitors, and nobody seemed to care about his condition. I spent many days there holding his hand and talking to him, helping with anything that needed to be done. He became a close friend of mine, even though he responded with only an occasional squeeze of my hand. Mr. Gillespie was in a coma.
　　I left for a week to vacation with my parents, and when I came back, Mr. Gillespie was gone. I didn't have the nerve to ask any of the nurses where he was, for fear they might tell me he had died. So with many questions unanswered, I continued to volunteer there through my eighth-grade year.
　　Several years later, when I was a junior in high school, I was at the gas station when I noticed a familiar face. When I realized who it was, my eyes filled with tears. He was alive! I got up the nerve to ask him if his name was Mr. Gillespie, and if he had been in a coma about five years ago. With an uncertain look on his face, he replied yes. I explained how I knew him, and that I had spent many hours talking with him in the hospital. His eyes welled up with tears, and he gave me the warmest hug I had ever received.
　　He began to tell me how, as he lay there comatose, he could hear me talking to him and could feel me holding his hand the whole time. He thought it was an angel, not a
person, who was there with him. Mr. Gillespie firmly believed that it was my voice and touch that had kept him alive.
　　Then he told me about his life and what happened to him to put him in the coma. We both cried for a while and exchanged a hug, said our good-byes and went our separate
ways.
　　Although I haven't seen him since, he fills my heart with joy every day. I know that I made a difference between his life and his death. More important, he has made a tremendous difference in my life. I will never forget him and what he did for me: he made me an angel.

By Angela Sturgill

Soda

There you stand, and I see you stare
Thinking, poor dear, she's stuck in that chair.
But I'm not sad, I'm very happy because
I haven't forgotten the way it was.
You'd say, "How about a trip to the zoo?
A walk in the park would be good for you."
I was thinking tomorrow, I'll be a wreck,
From my aching feet, to the pain in my neck.

You'd want to go shopping, all over town,
I was thinking but there's no place to sit down.
For you it's a snap, just to go to the store,
But for me the ordeal was more of a chore.

Now I can go wherever I please
I can shop in the mall with newfound ease,
Do all the things that have to be done,
And even go out and have some fun.

So, do you want to know how it really feels,
To be sitting here between these wheels?
Can you remember back that far,
When you got your very first car?

Well, that's how these wheels feel to me,
They don't hold me down, they set me free.
So, don't think all those pitiful things:
These aren't wheels, I think they're my wings.

By Darlene Uggen

Soda

Each summer in the late 1960s, my two sisters and I would ride the Greyhound bus from Arizona to Arkansas to stay with our father.
　　A World War II veteran, Dad had many medical problems, any one of which could cause many people to lose more than their sense of humor, but not him.
　　I have vivid memories of Dad waking us up in the morning. Before he'd put on his legs for the day (he had lost his legs after his discharge), his wheelchair was his mobility. Holding his cane, which was his extended arm, he would roll through the house yelling, "Up, up, up! Get up and face the day! It's a beautiful day! Rise and Shine!" If we didn't get up right away, he would repeat his song in rhythm with his cane hitting the end of our beds. This was no performance put on for our benefit; every day was truly a beautiful day to him.
　　Back in the sixties, there was no handicapped parking or wheelchair-accessible ramps like there are now, so even a trip to the grocery store was a difficult task. Dad wanted no assistance from anyone. He would climb stairs slowly but surely, whistling all the way. As a teenager, I found this embarrassing, but if Dad noticed, he didn't let on.
　　Once during a trip to the store, he found the three of us in the makeup department and began to look at makeup with us. He picked up a container of powder and started reading the label out loud. "'Leaves your skin soft and silky from head to toe.' Well that leaves half of me out," he said, laughing. We had to laugh, too. He had a talent
for finding humor in everything he did.
　　Those summers always ended too soon. He would drive us back to Arizona every year, stopping at the checkpoint for fruit and vegetables at the New Mexico-Arizona border.
When asked if he had any fruits or vegetables, he would reply, "Just three sweet peas."
　　Our father has been gone for a long time now, but not the lesson that he taught us: You are only as handicapped as you let yourself be.
　　I know now, too late, that any one of his "sweet peas" would be proud to walk beside him - whistling - up a set of stairs. And be glad to wake to the sound of his voice, to
rise and shine and see one of his beautiful days.

By Susan Arnett-Hutson

Soda

As Amy Hagadorn rounded the corner across the hall from her classroom, she collided with a tall boy from the fifth grade running in the opposite direction.
　　"Watch it, Squirt," the boy yelled, as he dodged around the little third grader. Then, with a smirk on his face, the boy took hold of his right leg and mimicked the way Amy limped when she walked.
　　Amy closed her eyes for a moment.
　　'Ignore him,' she told herself as she headed for her classroom.
　　But at the end of the day, Amy was still thinking about the tall boy's mean teasing. It wasn't as if he were the only one. It seemed that ever since Amy started the　third grade, someone teased her every single day. Kids teased her about her speech or her limping. Amy was tired of it. Sometimes, even in a classroom full of other students, the teasing made her feel all alone.
　　Back home at the dinner table that evening Amy was quiet. Her mother knew that things were not going well at school. That's why Patti Hagadorn was happy to have some exciting news to share with her daughter.
　　"There's a Christmas Wish Contest on the radio station," Amy's mom announced. "Write a letter to Santa and you might win a prize. I think someone at this table with blond curly hair should enter."
　　Amy giggled. The contest sounded like fun. She started thinking about what she wanted most for Christmas.
　　A smile took hold of Amy when the idea first came to her. Out came pencil and paper and Amy went to work on her letter. "Dear Santa Claus," she began.
　　While Amy worked away at her best printing, the rest of the family tried to guess what she might ask from Santa. Amy's sister, Jamie, and Amy's mom both thought a 3-foot
Barbie Doll would top Amy's wish list. Amy's dad guessed a picture book. But Amy wasn't ready to reveal her secret Christmas wish just then. Here is Amy's letter to Santa, just as she wrote it that night:

Dear Santa Claus,

　　My name is Amy. I am 9 years old. I have a problem at school. Can you help me, Santa? Kids laugh at me because of the way I walk and run and talk. I have cerebral palsy. I just want one day where no one laughs at me or makes fun of me.

Love,
Amy

　　At radio station WJLT in Fort Wayne, Indiana, letters poured in for the Christmas Wish Contest. The workers had fun reading about all the different presents that boys and
girls from across the city wanted for Christmas.
　　When Amy's letter arrived at the radio station, manager Lee Tobin read it carefully. He knew cerebral palsy was a muscle disorder that might confuse the schoolmates of Amy who didn't understand her disability. He thought it would be good for the people in Fort Wayne to hear about this special third grader and her unusual wish. Mr. Tobin called up the local newspaper.
　　The next day, a picture of Amy and her letter to Santa made the front page of the "News Sentinel." The story spread quickly. All across the country, newspapers and radio and television stations reported the story of the little girl in Fort Wayne, Indiana, who asked for such a simple, yet remarkable, Christmas gift - just one day without teasing.
　　Suddenly the postman was a regular at the Hagadorn house. Envelopes of all sizes addressed to Amy arrived daily from children and adults all across the nation. They came filled with holiday greetings and words of encouragement.
　　During that unforgettable Christmas season, over two thousand people from all over the world sent Amy letters of friendship and support. Amy and her family read every single one. Some of the writers had disabilities; some had been teased as children. Each writer had a special message for Amy. Through the cards and letters from strangers, Amy
glimpsed a world full of people who truly cared about each other. She realized that no amount or form of teasing could ever make her feel lonely again.
　　Many people thanked Amy for being brave enough to speak up. Others encouraged her to ignore teasing and to carry her head high. Lynn, a sixth grader from Texas, sent this message:
　　"I would like to be your friend," she wrote, "and if you want to visit me, we could have fun. No one would make fun of us, cause, if they do, we will not even hear them."
Amy did get her wish of a special day without teasing
　　at South Wayne Elementary School. Additionally, everyone at school got an added bonus. Teachers and students talked together about how bad teasing can make others feel.
　　That year, the Fort Wayne mayor officially proclaimed December 21st as Amy Jo Hagadorn Day throughout the city. The mayor explained that by daring to make such a simple wish, Amy taught a universal lesson.
　　"Everyone," said the mayor, "wants and deserves to be treated with respect, dignity and warmth."

by Alan D. Shultz