The Fragrance of Kindness ~

by Cheri Fuller

I love to read this book...

It is amazing how our encouraging words can really change a person's life~

"He was a poor wretch of a little boy who didn't seem to have a chance.

His dad was in debtor's prison, he'd only gotten to go to school for four years, and he was often hungry.

As a young man he went to work in a rat-infested warehouse putting labels on bottles. He found lodging in a drafty attic room with two other boys from the slums of London.

But he wanted to write.

He mailed his frist manuscript in the middle of the night so no one would laugh at him, and story after story came back to him, rejected.

Finally, when his first story got accepted, he was paid nothing.

But the editor PRAISED HIS WORK.

The young man was so overjoyed he wept.

That one bit of encouragement changed his whole life.

He wrote with even greater desire and enthusiasm.

Without that editor's few words of praise the young man might have stayed in the dark factories,

and the world would have been much poorer for lack of his writing...

The boy's name was Charles Dickens.

I also love to send handwritten notes periodically. In our era of emails , facebook and myspace... letter writing may seem to be a lost art. Don't get me wrong, I love the internet and all it's wonderful attributes, but there is something to be said for actually taking time out of our busy day to sit down, write a few lines and send it off to someone special. Or even just stick a note in a lunchbox or a briefcase of a loved one. Imagine the joy on their face when they find that someone took time to let them know how much they care.

I have always been a letter writer, but these days I send more "notes" than long letters. I want to let the people in my life know how special they are to me.

Blessings~