Interesting points from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader

So today i re-read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader again :) the thing that i loved about this series was that there were quite a few (sort of) biblical references being made throughout all the books.

In the chapter "How the adventure ended" where Eustace described how he transformed from a dragon back to a boy, it is mentioned that Aslan, the lion, brought Eustace to a well, and asked him to undress then "get in there and bathe". Eustace had no clothes on, but he soon understood that he was supposed to scratch and peel off his scaly dragon skin. All this+the bath was so that he would become a human again, that his flesh would be restored. Water is also often labeled as something we use to cleanse or clean ourselves with, even in the Bible, where Pontious Pilate, during Jesus's trial, washed his hands in front of the crowd when they demanded Jesus's death. This was to signify that he was innocent of Jesus's blood. This can be found in Matthew 27:24.

 This story (in my opinion) can be linked to the story of Naaman, found in 2 Kings 5. He was the commander of the king's army. Unfortunately, he was afflicted with leprosy. As we all know, leprosy is a very serious disease caused by a type of bacteria and one of the effects of having leprosy, is that your skin will  become scaly. God instructed Naaman, through Elisha, to bathe in the Jordan River 7 times, so that his "flesh would be restored and" he "would be cleansed."

Another biblical reference I believe has been made, would be when Eustace tries in vain to remove all his scaly skin. He peeled and peeled and peeled, but the skin was never completely removed. It was only when Aslan said "You will have to let me undress you" and Eustace agreed, that the skin finally came off and Eustace was restored to his normal human self. This section is possibly highlighting this bible verse, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding." from Proverbs 3:5. By ourselves, we will never be able to accomplish anything, it is only with God's grace and his help that we will be able to carry out his good works. This passage also reminded me that God always wants to help us (well except when he's angry with us) because he loves us, but we will never get helped if we don't open our hearts to receive his love and help. Similarly, if Eustace didn't agree to Aslan's help, he would never have been restored to his human self.

Well all this are just my thoughts haha sorry if there are any mistakes (if there are pls do point out!!) and I hope that you have attained some new insight from this :)

God bless! ^^

9 Fascinating Facts about Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech

1. Originally, the speech was titled "Normalcy, Never Again" and was based on several drafts.
2. Dr. King didn't begin drafting his speech until 12 hours before he was scheduled to speak because of his hectic schedule. 3 people contributed to the content of the speech, Dr. King, Stanley Levinson and Clarence Jones.
3. According to co-author Jones, Dr. King dramatically departed from the original draft, essentially ad-libbing one of the world's greatest speeches.
4. As he was speaking, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson yelled to Dr. King: "Tell them about the dream Martin." From that point, Dr. King began punctuating his speech with the phrase, "I have a dream."
5. Many sections of the speech were originally delivered as part of a speech Dr. King gave in June 1963 after the Great Walk to Freedom in Detroit.
6. Because of the impact of the speech, Dr. King was named Time's Man of the Year for 1963 and received the Nobel Peace Prize a year later, becoming the youngest recipient.
7. The rhetorical technique of repeating a phrase at the beginning of a sentence is called anaphora. The famous phrase is repeated 8 times.
8. As Dr. King left the podium after the speech, he gave the copy of his speech to George Raveling, a Villanova basketball player and acting volunteer guard, who still has the typewritten text and has turned down a $3 million offer for the speech .
9. The speech is 1666 words long and took 16 minutes and 2 seconds to deliver.
From Reader's Digest
http://www.rdasia.com/10-facts-mlk-speech

The Three Trees

Once there were three trees on a hill in a woods. They were discussing their hopes and dreams when the first tree said "Someday I hope to be a treasure chest. I could be filled with gold, silver and precious gems. I could be decorated with intricate carving and everyone would see the beauty."
Then the second tree said "Someday I will be a mighty ship. I will take kings and queens across the waters and sail to the corners of the world. Everyone will feel safe in me because of the strength of my hull."
Finally the third tree said. "I want to grow to be the tallest and straightest tree in the forest. People will see me on top of the hill and look up to my branches, and think of the heavens and God and how close to them I am reaching. I will be the greatest tree of all time and people will always remember me.."
After a few years of praying that their dreams would come true, a group of woodsmen came upon the trees. When one came to the first tree he said, "This looks like a strong tree, I think I should be able to sell the wood to a carpenter." and he began cutting it down. The tree was happy, because he knew that the carpenter would make him into a treasure chest.
At the second tree a woodsman said, "This looks like a strong tree, I should be able to sell it to the shipyard." The second tree was happy because he knew he was on his way to becoming a mighty ship.
When the woodsmen came upon the third tree, the tree was frightened because he knew that if they cut him down his dreams would not come true. One of the woodsman said, "I don't need anything special from my tree so I'll take this one" and he cut it down.
When the first tree arrived at the carpenters, he was made into a feed box for animals. He was then placed in a barn and filled with hay. This was not at all what he had prayed for. The second tree was cut and made into a small fishing boat. His dreams of being a mighty ship and carrying kings had come to an end. The third tree was cut into large pieces and left alone in the dark.
The years went by, and the trees forgot about their dreams. Then one day, a man and women came to the barn. She gave birth and they placed the baby in the hay in the feed box that was made from the first tree. The man wished that he could have made a crib for the baby, but this manger would have to do. The tree could feel the importance of this event and knew that it had held the greatest treasure of all time.
Years later, a group of men got in the fishing boat made from the second tree. One of them was tired and went to sleep. While they were out on the water, a great storm arose and the tree didn't think it was strong enough to keep the men safe. The men woke the sleeping man, and he stood and said "peace" and the storm stopped. At this time, the tree knew that it had carried the king of kings in it's boat.
Finally, someone came and got the third tree. It was carried through the streets as the people mocked the man who was carrying it. When they came to a stop, the man was nailed to the tree and raised in the air to die at the top of a hill. When Sunday came, the tree came to realize that it was strong enough to stand at the top of the hill and be as close to God as was possible, because Jesus had been crucified on it.
The moral of this story is that when things don't seem to be going your way, always know that God has a plan for you. If you place your trust in Him, He will give you great gifts. Each of the trees got what they wanted, just not in the way they had imagined.

SO TRUE gosh

School Phone Menu ..... California School.
"Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member,
please listen to all the options before making a selection:

- To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1

- To make excuses for why your child did not do his work - Press 2

- To complain about what we do - Press 3

- To swear at staff members - Press 4

- To ask why you didn't get information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several flyers mailed to you - Press 5

- If you want us to raise your child - Press 6

- If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone - Press 7

- To request another teacher, for the third time this year - Press 8

- To complain about bus transportation - Press 9

- To complain about school lunches - Press 0

- If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable and responsible for his/her own behavior,
class work, homework and that it's not all the teachers' fault for your child's lack of effort: Hang up and have a nice day!

More quotes! :)

Just a little note first the stuff in italics are my comments, not part of the quote :)

1. The pain you feel today is the strength you feel tomorrow. For every challenge encountered there is opportunity for growth. ~Unknown
-->Think of challenges/difficulties as opportunities and chances! :) 

2. Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect, it means that you have decided to look beyond the imperfections. ~Unknown

3. The best revenge is massive success. ~Frank Sinatra
-->Whenever you hate someone to the extent where you feel like you cannot forgive the person(eg Elizabeth Choy and the Japanese soldiers) remember this quote, there is  really no point wasting time in getting angry/plotting revenge on that person, this is definitely the best payback  for both you and your enemy xD 

Positive outlook on life

Not really a story here just something that I learnt today: We should all have a positive outlook on life when faced with adversity. I know I know, sounds easy actually very hard. However, Elizabeth Choy, Prisoners of War during WWII had hard lives, much harder and torturous than anything we will hopefully ever have to go through. What did they do? Instead of giving up on themselves, they maintained a positive outlook of life! For example, the prisoners used sign language(they were not allowed to communicate) to encourage each other. After the war, Elizabeth Choy herself managed to forgive the Japanese soldiers and continued to help and serve others in her life. On the other hand, people who succumbed to depression, gave up on themselves etc mostly didn't survive the war. It's not just about the harsh conditions sometimes, it's more about your attitude towards the problems.

Hope this inspired you today!

<3 owner of this blog

P.S I wrote this myself okay! :D

Encouragement from blogger :)

Hey readers^^ this is a special post going out to people currently facing exams or their exam results :) no matter what will face u ahead, never back down and don't be afraid:) just do your best and God will do the rest <3 JIAYOU TO EVERYONE you can do it! :D

~owner of this blog hehe^^

Note to viewers

All of the stories that are on this website are NOT written by me...I repeat, they are NOT written by me. Many of them are found from the Internet(they should have the author's name mentioned there and those that do not have are mostly from this website: http://www.rogerknapp.com/knap/inspire.htm

Thank you for viewing my blog! Hope you will/have been blessed by the stories :)

Judge by the Looks

A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into the president's outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge. She frowned.
"We want to see the president," the man said softly.
"He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped.
"We'll wait," the lady replied.
For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't. And the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted to do. "Maybe if they just see you for a few minutes, they'll leave," she told him. And he sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, but he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office. The president, stern-faced with dignity, strutted toward the couple.
The lady told him, "We had a son that attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. And my husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus". The president wasn't touched he was shocked.
"Madam," he said gruffly, "we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery."
"Oh, no," the lady explained quickly, "we don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard.
The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and
homespun suit, then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical plant at Harvard." For a moment the lady was silent.
The president was pleased. He could get rid of them now.
The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a University? Why don't we just start our own?" Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.
Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the University that bears their name, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about!

How many marbles do you have?

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, of maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the kitchen, with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems
to hand you from time to time.

Let me tell you about it. I turned the volume up on my radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning talk show. I heard an older sounding chap with a golden voice. You know the kind, he sounded like he should be in the
broadcasting business himself.

He was talking about "a thousand marbles" to someone named "Tom". I was intrigued and sat down to listen to
what he had to say. "Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital. " He continued, "Let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."
"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years." "Now then, I multiplied 75
times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.

"Now stick with me Tom, I'm getting to the important part. "It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. "I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. "So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1000 marbles. "I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in my workshop next to the radio. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away.

"I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight. "Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then God has blessed me with a little extra time to be with my loved ones...... "It was nice to talk to you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your loved ones, and I hope to meet you again someday. Have a good morning!"

You could have heard a pin drop when he finished. Even the show's moderator didn't have anything to say for a few moments. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to do some work that morning, then go to the
gym. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special," I said. " It has just been a
long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles."

Rose

The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn't already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being She said, "Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?" I laughed and enthusiastically responded, "Of course you may!" and she gave me a giant squeeze. "Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?" I asked. She jokingly replied, "I'm here to meet a rich husband, get married, have a couple of children, and then retire and travel." "No seriously," I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age." I always dreamed of having a college education and now I'm getting one!" she told me. After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake. We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this "time machine" as she shared her wisdom and experience with me. Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up. At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I'll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor. Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, "I'm sorry I'm so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I'll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know." As we laughed she cleared her throat and began: "We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing. There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success." You have to laugh and find humor every day. "You've got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die. We have so many people walking around who are dead and don't even know it!" "There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up. If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don't do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight. Anybody can grow older. That doesn't take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding the opportunity in change." "Have no regrets. The elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets. She concluded her speech by courageously singing "The Rose." She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the years end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago. One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep. Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it's never too late to be all you can possibly be. If you read this, please send this peaceful word of advice to your friends and family, they'll really enjoy it!

We send these words in loving memory of ROSE Remember,

GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY,
GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL.
Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

Cross

A young man was at the end of his rope. Seeing no way out, he dropped to his knees in prayer. "Lord, I can't go on," he said, "I have too heavy of a cross to bear." The Lord replied, "My son, if you can't bear this weight, just place your cross inside this room. Then, open that other door and pick out any cross you wish." The man was filled with relief and said, "Thank you Lord,"and he did as he was told. Upon entering the other door, he saw many crosses, some so large the tops were not visible. Then, he spotted a tiny cross leaning against a far wall. "I'd like that one, Lord," he whispered. And the Lord replied," My son, that is the cross you just brought in." When life's problems seem overwhelming, it helps to look around and see what other people are coping with. You may consider yourself far more fortunate than you imagined.