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{HeartTouchers.com} *The Christmas Mouse* ______________________________________ If you enjoy this free email service, I encourage you to spread the word to family and friends that we may bring inspiration into the lives of many! If you are not on the list and this has been passed along to you, join the thousands of HeartTouchers.com readers around the world by sending a blank e-mail to: HeartTouchers-subscribe@myinjesus.com Visit our inspirational web site and read all the past stories in our archives at: http://www.HeartTouchers.com/Archives Be sure to check out our brand new inspirational list just for teenagers! Heart4Teens.com To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to: Heart4Teens-subscribe@myinjesus.com or visit: http://www.Heart4Teens.com ____________________________________________ The Christmas Mouse By Jaye Lewis It was our first Christmas season in Florida. I was three years old, and it was going to be particularly lean. It was 1949, and we were a transient family looking for a new home. We ate pork'n'beans, and I can still hear the sound of the tin spoons scraping across tin pie plates. We battled roaches, spiders, and ants, of Biblical proportions, and there were mice! No ordinary mice, these were confrontive and intelligent. They evaded traps, and when my mother went screaming after them with a broom ?! Well, it was just a shame that the video camera hadn't been invented yet! She would wildly swing the broom around making everyone dive for cover. To our amazement, the mice would just stand there, daring her to be accurate. Goodness knows, she never hit the varmints, but she managed to clock just about everybody else in the room. Finally, the mice became bored, and they all went south, except one. Then came Christmas, and my mother began to work her magic. I'm quite certain that she did everything by herself. Out of nowhere appeared a tree. Out of another hiding place appeared ornaments. Mommy was very secretive, and she stayed up long into the night, working by flashlight. All of us slept in one room, my Mom and Dad on the sofa-bed, with me in between, and my brothers and sister on the floor. Christmas Eve dawned bright and clear. Wonderful smells were coming from the old stove. My mother's cheeks were flushed from her mysterious activities. She had managed to come up with presents for each of us, but I noticed that there was no present for her. "Why is Santa Claus not bringing you presents, Mommy?" I asked, worried that her feelings would be hurt. "Oh, I'm sure that there will be something," she reassured me, in soft tones. "Perhaps there will be a special surprise from the Christ child," she said, revealing her European roots. My mother pulled pie after pie out of the tiny oven. Apple pie, brimming with cinnamon. Pumpkin pie, with just a touch of spice. Mince-meat pie and raisin cake. One by one, the smells enticed my salivary glands. Near midnight, we went to church. It was so exciting to think of the yummy foods we would share after we arrived back home. I could hardly keep my mind on the sermon, as the minister preached on this special night of God's love. By the time we left the church, it was Christmas Day. All of us were intent upon the feast awaiting us at home. We tip-toed into the house, mindful of our sleeping neighbors. We tumbled into the kitchen around the table, grateful to discover the pies untouched by insects or rodents. We gathered together for a prayer of thanks for our lovely feast. "Wait!" my mother exclaimed, motioning towards the door. There, in the doorway, which led into the living room, stood a tiny mouse. She had huge ears, and her pink nose was twitching. My brother lunged, but my mother motioned for him to be still. The mouse never moved. Then, as if on cue, the mouse darted into the living room, heading for the big dresser. Quickly she scurried, as my mother walked with a deadly purpose. This was a mouse who was going to get caught on Christmas Day. My mother slowly opened the bottom drawer; then the next, then the next. There, curled up together in a nice cozy bed, made from scraps of material and bits of wool, lay a bundle of naked, sleeping, newborn mice. "We can drown them!" Someone cried. "We can stomp them!" Said another. "We could keep them." I piped up. About that time, mother mouse crawled upon the top of the dresser looking down at her brood. It was a perfect time to destroy them! They were vermin. They carry disease. It was the logical thing to do . "It's just not the Christmas thing to do." My mother said, with a smile. A kind of hush settled over the room. My mother gently closed the dresser drawer, and the mouse ran behind the dresser, slipping into the drawer where her babies slept. With a mysterious smile, my mother slipped into the kitchen, and sliced a small piece of pumpkin pie. She returned to the dresser, placing the gift on the floor, out of the way. Mommy looked at Daddy, and she announced her decision to leave the mouse family alone. "This is my Christmas present," she said. "Sent by the Christ-child. He was born in a stable, because there was no room for him at the Inn. Well, there is room for him in our hearts, and I think there's room for this homeless little family, too!" No one said a word. We returned to our feast, and I wondered about this incredibly romantic woman, who wouldn't allow a little mouse and her family to go hungry on Christmas Day. © Jaye Lewis, 2003 jlewis@smyth.net Jaye Lewis is an award winning writer who lives and writes in the Appalachian Mountains of southwestern Virginia. Jaye is working on her first book entitled "Entertaining Angels," which celebrates life from a unique perspective, seeing angels and miracles in the every day. Jaye can be emailed at jlewis@smyth.net _________________________________________ Thought For The Day: "What a big difference there is between giving advice and lending a hand." --Waterloo Verse for the Day: "Little children, let us stop just saying we love people; let us really love them, and show it by our actions." --1 John 3:18 Kid's Thought For The Day: "When you get a bad grade in school, show it to your mom when she's on the phone." Parent's Thought For The Day "A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person." --Mignon McLaughlin Coach's Thought For The Day "Success is how high you bounce after you hit bottom." --General George S. Patton Writer's Thought For The Day: "The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home." --John Campbell Deep Thought For The Day: "She's always late. Her ancestors arrived on the Juneflower." _________________________________________ Have you been to the HeartTouchers.com website lately? If you like what you see and would like to have your own professional looking website, visit the link below. Bizstudio has been a wonderful service for HeartTouchers.com and with 290,000 visitors in the past three years, the website has been a tremendous tool in helping us to "Touch Lives, One Email at a Time." Although I had no prior experience building a website, I was able to create and build the HeartTouchers.com site easily utilizing Bizstudio's online editor. It includes an Online Site Editor, Unlimited Updates, Unlimited Pages, Professional Themes, Pre-Programmed Features, E-mail Accounts, and free Search Engine Submission. If I could do it with no prior experience you can too! Check it out at this link: http://www.bizstudio.com/main/home.htm?bpn=A16435 _________________________________________ MICHAEL T. POWERS www.HeartTouchers.com "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2:20 __________________________________________ Video Imagery --Michael's Video Production Business Dear Michael, I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for the beautiful video you made for me! It was so special to see both of my parents in tears as they watched their children grow up in pictures before their eyes! I loved the way you made Estania's part set aside from the rest--that was the part that really got them! The music was beautiful. My mom kept blubbering, "What song is that?" I don't know how you did such a beautiful job with the video in such a short time. I really appreciate your doing it so quickly. You have a wonderful gift, and I thank God that you are using it to create such sentimental memories. I hope that I can find my niche like that in an area that I love. Your video gave us one of our most lasting Christmas memories! I hope yours was filled with moments to be treasured forever! Love, Trisha Silverhill, AL Let me make you a video from your photos! Check out my video production business by visiting: http://www.hearttouchers.com/video_imagery ___________________________________________ Would you like to see your story in HeartTouchers.com? Writer's guidelines can be found on our Web site here: http://www.HeartTouchers.com/guidelines/ __________________________________________ Do you feel as if life has no meaning for you? http://www.greatcom.org/english/four.htm _________________________________________ The copyrights to the stories that appear in HeartTouchers.com are owned by the authors and are used with their permission. We refuse to run stories without the author's permission and contact info listed after the story. We also refuse to publish stories listed as "author unknown." (All of which violates Copyright Law and the rights of the authors.) This e-mail may be forwarded in its entirety, but please do not cut and paste the stories to be used elsewhere unless you have contacted and been given permission by the individual writer. Thank you so much for honoring the rights of those writers who graciously share their stories with us! ___________________________________________ Reading Books, Changing Lives! For those of you who would like to purchase the books from the HeartTouchers.com bookstore via your credit card, you can now do so! You can now order a number of different autographed best-selling inspirational books for the same price you would get them in the store, the shipping to you is paid for, and you are helping change the lives of teenagers and those they come in contact with! And best of all, every penny from the book sales are going to youth ministry! http://www.HeartTouchers.com/books _________________________________________________ A number of people have written to us asking what an EBook is, since our book is being offered in both print and EBook versions. An EBook is a book that can be downloaded and read right on your computer. The advantage of ordering the EBook is that is costs less, $8.95 (No other charges), as compared to $14.95 + shipping and handling for the print book. Plus you can download the EBook and begin reading the stories in a few minutes! EBooks are read via Acrobat Reader, which is software that most of you already have on your computer. And if for some reason you don't, it can be downloaded free of charge at the web site. So for those of you who don't want to wait for the print book to be delivered, check out this web site to order the EBook version of Straight From the Heart "A Celebration of Life." http://www.booklocker.com/bookpages/michaeltpowers01.html |
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Touching Lives - One E-mail at a Time! Author Michael T. Powers - HeartTouchers @ aol.com
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