Friday thoughts

My random Friday thoughts

My quote for the week.  Simple and basic, but so true.  I tell my kids this basically every day.  This is what matters, not your shoe size or your pant size, or your hair style, but working hard and being nice to people.  That is what matters,.

Along those same lines, I am reading a great book now about an amazing person who worked/works very hard.  Who had an amazing mother who helped him to work hard and turn his life around.

It is Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story by Ben Carson.  He was one of the worst students in his 5th grade class. He really struggled in school.  His mom was a single mother, that didn't now how to read and cleaned houses.  She was raising her boys in the ghettos of Detroit.  She barely made ends meet, but she wanted more for her two boys.  One day she noticed that the successful people who she cleaned houses for had lots of books and read them.  She came home from work, turned off the TV that her two boys were watching and told them from then on they needed to go to the library and read 2 books a week. She wanted a report on each at the end of the week.  They were only allowed to watch 2 TV shows a week.  Of course they whined and complained, but she had laid down the law.  That was it, so they went to the library, and read.  By 7th grade Ben was at the top of his class.  He attended Yale on a scholarship and went to John Hopkins medical school.  At the age of 33 he became John Hopkins chief of pediatric neurosurgery and a world-renowned surgeon--separating Siamese twins successfully.  It is an amazing story--a true story.

Our library also had a movie of this story that our whole family watched this past weekend.  It was very good and a testament to the power of a mother and prayer and hard work.  I would highly recommend it.

Have a great week!