I read an article about how simple acts can have tremendous rippling effects. I would like to share it with you.:
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                                                        LEAVING GREAT LEGACIES
                                                                 by Steve Goodier
                                                                 by Steve Goodier
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Edwin Hubbel Chapin once said, “Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.” That is the definition of a legacy. Wouldn’t you love to do something that might strike a beautiful chord that will “vibrate in eternity”?
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I’ve discovered this about legacies - generous people leave great legacies. I read about a couple in Canada who stopped to help a motorist who had run out of gasoline. It was a regular occurrence in their part of rural Canada. After they got him on his way, they bought
a new fuel can, scratched their initials on it, filled it with petrol and stored it in the trunk of their car.
a new fuel can, scratched their initials on it, filled it with petrol and stored it in the trunk of their car.
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A few months later they again stopped to assist a stranded motorist. But this time they GAVE him their gas can and told him to fill it up, keep it with him and pass it along to the next motorist he sees who has run out of fuel.
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Though they never expected to see their can again, in a couple of years they spotted it being passed along to a grateful motorist on the road. They recognized it several more times over the years, and each time they asked its owner where it had come from. They ascertained that the can had traveled across the continent at least two times!
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They never intended to leave a legacy. When they bought the fuel can they never dreamed that their action might strike chords that could vibrate in eternity. But that container is probably still traveling across Canada in the back of somebody’s vehicle!
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I wonder how many stranded motorists have been rescued by the generosity of complete strangers who stopped to help? And how many have then taken the container, re-filled it, and finally passed it along to some other poor soul? Good will generated by a humble can of
fuel has no doubt been multiplied many times in countless ways, striking beautiful chords that vibrate forever.
fuel has no doubt been multiplied many times in countless ways, striking beautiful chords that vibrate forever.
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It’s true - generous people leave great legacies. Even that small piece of yourself you freely give away may thrive in surprising ways throughout eternity.
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After I read it I thought of an incident that happened several years ago. My husband has a vending company. One very HOT day I had to help him fill vending machines. So that meant my van was loaded with pop chips and candy. Before I had gotten to my first stop I had a tire blowout on a very busy expressway near Ann Arbor, Michigan. (Go Blue)
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Needless to say I was a damsel in distress. I got out the manual of how to change the tire and getting the spare out of its stored location proved to be my first obstacle. Standing by the side of the very busy road with cars traveling within inches of me going 90 miles an hour, I was well out of my comfort zone.
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A white van pulled up behind me an a nice young gentleman got out and offered to help. He put on my spare tire as if he had done it many times in the past. He would not take money for his trouble nor would he accept my offer of junk food. he simply said, Please just have your husband return the favor one day to someone else.”
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As he drove away I noted that it was an 84 Lumber Company van. His sewn in name tag told me his name was “Dennis”. When I got home I made a few phone calls and got the address of the 84 Lumber Company in Ann Arbor, where “Dennis” worked.
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At that time I was a volunteer for our local cancer organization so I made a donation to it in his honor. Several days later I went into the cancer office and the ladies informed me that I had had a gentleman call and ask for me. They told him I volunteered there
and assured him that any message he left would get to me.
and assured him that any message he left would get to me.
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He proceeded to tell the ladies that I had made a donation in his honor simply for changing my tire. He went onto explain that my gesture was especially heart felt to him because he himself was a cancer survivor.
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In writing this now many years later it still brings a tear to my eye of how a simple act of kindness can generate so much good.
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