In today’s excerpt from Welcome The Rain, author Michelle Sedas writes a touching story about the power of kindness. In the chapter titled Welcome Mistakes, we are reminded that we choose our legacy.

Father’s Day is Sunday, June 15. As a father myself, I had to learn that my reactions to even the tiniest of events had a tremendous effect on my daughters. I wish I would have had this powerful book as I raised my girls. Fortunately, I can now use this wisdom while impacting the lives of my grandchildren. This Father’s Day, inspire all the dads in your life with this best-selling book. 

As a special offer, with the purchase of the Welcome The Rain Inspirational Kit, we will include one FREE Because Our Children Are Watching DVD and screensaver set just in time for Father’s Day. Because Our Children Are Watching reminds us that everything we do is important in the eyes of children. Offer good while supplies last or until NOON (Central time) on Thursday, June 12, 2008. Limit one free DVD per customer.   

Did you ever think the little things you do could have such an impact? In the Because Our Children Are Watching movie, you’ll find compelling scenes depicting the innocence of children, the influence of adults, and the dynamic relationship between the two. You’ll be inspired to act according to your internal beliefs and values. This 3-minute movie, available as a DVD and screensaver set, reminds us that everything we do is important in the eyes of children.

Today’s article is excerpted from Welcome The Rain.

Click here to watch the "Welcome The Rain" movie.


Welcome Mistakes

My grandmother was born in a small West Texas farming town on August 26, 1929, two months and three days before Black Tuesday, the Stock Market crash that started the Great Depression. As the youngest daughter of sharecroppers, who earned their living by picking cotton, she knew the meaning of barely getting by. Times were tough and she learned to never waste anything.

Her Uncle Jess was a compassionate man who always treated her with kindness. Each time she would visit him, she always left with the same feeling: I am special. After all, she was the only person who was allowed to drink from his special pink drinking glass. One day, she took the pink glass out to the water cooler, a special room that stored and cooled the water generated from the windmill. Out in the water cooler, she dropped the glass. Looking down at the hundreds of glass fragments, she began to cry. She had been entrusted with this special glass and now it was broken.

Her crying was interrupted when she heard Uncle Jess call out, “Ruby Nell, I was thinking. I’m tired of that silly old pink glass. Would you please break it for me?” She ran back to him calling out, with the enthusiasm that only a six-year-old can summon, “I did it, Uncle Jess! I did it!”

The way we choose to respond when others make mistakes can cause them to feel ashamed or can allow them to remember our kindness and share our stories with future generations. We choose our legacy that gets passed down to others.

I expect to pass through this life but once.
Therefore, if there be any kindness I can show,
or any good thing I can do for another human being,
let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again.
~William Penn