Reece Gardner: Little touches of heaven here on earth

This week, I want to report on a couple of real-life examples of people helping people. 

Kim Hughes was an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The doctor who was approved under his insurance plan was going to require him to wait a few months to do the surgery, but Hughes didn't want to wait because it was too risky and would also require him to miss a good part of the upcoming season. 

He found another doctor willing to do the surgery sooner, but the insurance company let him know they wouldn't be paying for it. It was a good thing he didn't wait because the cancer, it turned out, was already beginning to spread. 

But saving a life isn't cheap. The bill came to $70,000 and Hughes and his family were going to have to find some way to pay the full amount. That is, until several Clippers players heard about the situation and arranged to pay the bill for their coach.

Another example of goodness being displayed involved Virginia Saenz, who received a message on her voice mail from a total stranger addressing a person who didn't live there, with this message: "I can send you money for groceries, but that won't leave me enough to pay my mortgage this month, and the house is already in foreclosure." 

Saenz, a real estate agent whose only connection to these people was that her phone number was a couple of transposed digits away from theirs, could have just deleted the message.

If she was motivated to be a good Samaritan, she could have called the person back to let her know she had gotten the wrong number, so she would know that the person she had intended to call did not receive her message.  

Instead, Saenz called the stranger back and said, "I'll take care of the groceries, don't worry about it." That lady, Lucy Crutchfield, had meant to leave a message for her daughter. Saenz contacted the daughter and bought her and her family enough groceries to get them through the end of the month, thus allowing Crutchfield to pay her mortgage. 

These are examples of ittle touches of heaven here on earth.

Now, to close on a humorous note: Three sons left home, went out on their own and prospered. They discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly mother. The first said, "I built a big house for our mother,” while the second said, "I sent her a Mercedes with a driver."

The third son said, "You remember how our mother enjoys reading the Bible. Now she can't see very well, so I sent her a remarkable parrot that recites the entire Bible.” 

It took elders in the church six years to teach him. Their mom just had to name the chapter and verse and the parrot recited it. 

Soon thereafter, their mother sent out letters of thanks. To the first son she wrote, "The house you built is so huge. I live only in one room, but I have to clean the whole house." 

To the second son she wrote, "I'm too old to travel. I stay most of the time at home, so I rarely use the Mercedes, and the driver is so rude." 

To the third son, she wrote, "The  chicken was delicious!" 

Have a great day!