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Jock, the Painter
There was a Scottish tradesman, a painter called Jock, who was very interested in making a pound where
he could, so he often would thin down paint to make it go a wee bit further.
As it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually the Presbyterian Church decided to do a big restoration job on the roof of one their biggest churches. Jock
put in a bid, and because his price was so competitive, he got the job.
And so he set to, with a right good will, erecting the trestles and setting up the planks, and buying the paint and, yes, I am sorry to say, thinning it down with the
turpentine.
Well, Jock was up on the scaffolding, painting away, the job nearly done, when suddenly there was a horrendous clap of thunder, and the sky opened the rain poured down, washing
the thin paint from all over the church and knocking Jock fair off the scaffold to land on the lawn, among the gravestones, surrounded by telltale puddles of the thinned and
useless paint.
Jock was no fool. He knew this was a judgment from the Almighty, so he got on his knees and cried: “Oh, God! Forgive me! What should I do?”
And from the thunder, a mighty voice spoke: “Repaint! Repaint and thin no more!”
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The Push
This happened on one of those special cruise ships. A sudden storm blew up at sea and a young lady, leaning against the ship’s rail, lost her balance in the
storm on the wet deck and fell overboard. Before anybody could react, another figure plunged into the waves beside her and held her up until a lifeboat could be lowered to
rescue them. To everyone’s astonishment, the hero was the oldest man on board ship … an octogenarian grandfather! That evening, he was given a party in honor of his
bravery. “Speech! Speech!” the other passengers called out.
The old gentleman rose slowly and looked around at the enthusiastic gathering. “There’s just one thing I’d like to know,” he said testily, “WHO pushed me?”
Sometimes we need a shove to get us doing the right thing.
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