【推荐1】I had an interesting question from my 10-year-old daughter Claire. She asked me if I had always been this confident. I thought about it for a while and gave her the best answer in terms of my own personal development.

I was born and _______ in a small town in Zambia. From a very young age I was encouraged to_______the world and ask as many questions as I could. My grandfather was a(n)_______ holding a high position in the government, but he treated everyone with______like what others did to him. And I often watched him _______with people that way. As a child, I was determined to be like him _______ I grew up. I wanted to make people feel good about_______ and have meaningful conversations that would ______ people to take action and create a better world for everyone.

As an ordinary African girl, I know what life had to______. And I also knew that I would have some bad days as well as good days. I saw this with my parents, as they________hid their feelings or situations. And from that, I had a_________ view of my reality.

I tell Claire that my confidence comes from within and I am bound to ______moments when I’m worried about whether things will work in my______ , but I have the courage not to give up on my dreams. It’s the strong belief that I am good enough and I can do it that has had me going for the last 20 years. A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid that the branch will _________because its trust in not on the branch but on its own _______. Always believe in yourself.

【推荐3】My mother used to ask me what the most important part of the body is. Through the years I would guess at what I thought was the ________ answer.

When I was younger, I thought ________ was very important to us as humans, so I said, “My ears, Mommy.” She said, “No. Many people are deaf. But you keep thinking about it and I will ask you again soon.”

Several ________ passed before she asked me again. This time I told her, “Mommy, sight is very important to everybody,________ it must be our eyes.” She told me, “You are learning ________, but the answer is not correct because there are many people who are blind.”

Over the years, my mother asked me a couple more times and always her ________ was “No, but you are getting ________ every year, my child.”

Then last year, my grandpa ________. Everybody was crying. My mom looked at me when it was our ________ to say our final good-bye to grandpa. She asked me, “Do you know the most important body part yet, my dear?”

I was shocked when she asked me this now. I always thought this was a game ________ her and me. She saw the ________ on my face and told me, “This question is very important. It shows that you have ________ lived your life.” I saw her eyes well up with ________. She said, “My dear, the most important body part is your shoulder.”

“Is it because it ________ your head?” I asked.

She replied, “No, it is because it can hold the head of a friend or ________ one when they cry. Everybody needs a shoulder to cry on sometimes in life, my dear. I only hope that you have enough love and that you will have a shoulder to cry on when you need.”

【推荐1】When we pay attention, we see courage every day. I see it in my classroom when a student ________her hand and says, “I’m completely lost.” Do you know how incredibly________it is to say so when you’re pretty sure everyone else gets it?

I recently saw another________of ordinary courage in my son Charlie’s preschool. Parents were invited to________a music presentation by the kids. You know the________— twenty-five children singing with fifty-plus ________in the audience holding up cameras.

One girl cried her way through the entire________because she couldn’t see her mom. As I was telling Charlie goodbye,I saw her mom rush into the door,and immediately start ________the room for her daughter. Another mother walked by this stressed mom, shook her head and________her eyes.

Just then one more mom walked up to this now________mom and smiled. “I wasn’t just late. I________forgot.” She said, “It’s okay. We’re in the same boat.” The woman’s face________and she wiped away a tear. By the time she made it to the corner where the teacher was still________her daughter, she looked calm.

The mom who stopped and shared her story of________was practicing courage. She didn’t have to. Every time we choose________,we make the world a little kinder and braver.

【推荐2】This is a true story of Mother’s Sacrifice during the Japan Earthquake. After the earthquake, the rescuers reached the ruins of a young woman’s house. They saw her dead body through the cracks. However, her _______ was strange as she knelt on her knees; her body was _______ forward, and her two hands were supported by an object. The collapsed house had _______ on her back and head.

With many difficulties, the leader of the rescue team put his hand _______ a narrow gap on the wall to reach the woman’s body. He was _______ that this woman would be still alive. However, the cold and stiff body told him that she had passed away _______

He and the rest of the _______ left the house and were going to search the next collapsed building. For some reason, the team leader was _______ by a force to go back to the house for the dead woman. This time, he carefully passed his hand through the _______ cracks to search the little space under the dead body. Suddenly, he screamed with ________, “A child! There is a child!”

The whole team worked together. They carefully ________ the piles of ruined objects around the dead woman. There was a three-month-old boy ________ in his mother’s body ________, the woman had used her body to protect her son when the house collapsed. The little boy was still sleeping ________ when the team leader picked him up.

The medical doctor came quickly to examine the little boy ________ he opened the blanket, he saw a cellphone inside the blanket. There was a text ________ on the screen. It said, “If you ________, you must remember that I love you.” This cellphone was passed around from one hand to another among the rescuers. Everybody that read the message ________. As is known, it is mother’s ________ love that protects us from cold and hunger, but at certain ________ points, it is mother’s love that shelters us from danger and death.

【推荐3】My parents were so proud of me, especially of something I accomplished. This is one of my happiest memories and, sadly, also the _______ I have of my parents. They _______ in one evening when some drunken men crashed their car into them.

From then on, I was _______. I missed them greatly, but_______surprisingly well on my own. If they were alive, they would be most _______ of the moment I met my best friend, Eliza Jones. I'm also most proud of that _______

It was a June evening. I was seventeen years old and sitting on a tree branch, listening to the music the water created under the bridge. Just then I noticed a(n) _______ appear on the bridge. Suddenly it stopped on the top of the bridge and _______ to the river.

I _______ up and launched myself at the falling figure. I had never swum at this ________. I had to catch it; ________ I would never forgive myself. I swam faster and faster and ________ the figure. I laid the person on the riverbank and found it was a girl, about my age. She asked me why I tried to ________ her. I said I couldn't just watch someone didn't ________ her life. Then we talked and I found we both liked to read about fairies.

She told me she was a writer who wanted to travel around the world and write amazing fantasy novels. I was glad she had a target for the future. I said, ''Tomorrow morning the sun will rise, bringing with it the ________ of another start. '' And she promised she would continue living well. After that I had a fond memory of the bridge.

【推荐1】When my sister Martie told me she planted tomatoes last summer, I was quite impressed. Since she was a garden _________, Martie researched exactly how far apart to space her tomato plants, what kind of fertilizer to _________ to the land. Once they were planted, she _________ them daily, anxiously awaiting the juicy tomatoes to appear. But day after day, her plants were tomato-less while all of her neighbors who had also planted tomatoes were already enjoying the fruits of their _________. Martie kept wondering what had _________ her tomato plants not to produce.

_________, Martie gave in and went to the market to buy fresh tomatoes. While _________, Martie told the farmer her troubles. The farmer _________ to think for a moment and then asked, “Well, what kind of tomatoes did you plant?” “I think they were called Big Boy,” Martie remembered. “Well, there’s your problem,” the farmer _________. “Big Boy and Better Boy tomatoes have a 95-day gestation (孕育) period __________ regular tomato plants produce fruit in as little as 70 days. You just have to wait a little longer for the Big Boy.”

With the new knowledge, Martie went home with __________, knowing they would be worth the wait.

It makes me wonder how many of us have “Big Boy” dreams in our hearts, yet we just don’t __________ that they are of the “Big Boy” variety, so we are __________ and worn out with the waiting process. Instead of __________ with excitement, we give up on our dreams and figure we must have done something wrong to stop them from coming to pass.

Well, if that’s you today, don’t be __________. Don’t give up.

【推荐2】I was lucky enough to test into the best high school in the city. But then came my ______: Am I good enough? It was a question that ______ me through my first month, even as I began to ______, even as I got used to the early morning wake-ups and moving between ______ for class.

I knew I had to work to ground myself. My earliest ______ involved keeping quiet and trying to observe my new classmates. Who were these kids anyway? How did they learn in school? All I knew was that they were the ______ kids in the city, obviously. But wasn’t I as well? Hadn’t I ______ here because I was smart like them? The truth is that I didn’t know. This ______ was like a deadly cell that threatened to divide and divide again, ______ I could find some way to stop it. Fortunately, my first ______ of grades turned out to be excellent, and so did my second. Over the course of my first two years, I began to build the same kind of ______ I’d had at my previous school. With each little achievement, my doubt ______ took leave.

I loved any subject that ______ writing and labored through math. I had classmates who were always a step or two ahead of me, whose achievements seemed effortless, but I tried not to let that get to me. I was beginning to understand that if I put in extra hours of studying, I could often ______ the gap. I wasn’t a straight-A student, but I was always ______ and I made progress.

【推荐3】When do you stick with something even if you’re not the best at it?

When people find out my son Sam is a(n) ________ mathlete, they usually ask if my husband and I are “math people”. The answer is definitely not. Sam’s done pretty well ________ his parents aren’t math people. But sometimes I wish I was a math person so I could help him or at least give him better ________.

Ninth grade was ________ for Sam, math-wise. He left the ________ of middle school math, where he was kind of a big fish, and started ________ with the high school kids. In the most recent competition, he didn’t do as well as he’d hoped and was ________ by a math camp he’d applied to. He’d set a high goal for himself and hadn’t quite ________ it.

He ________ into my office one day last week, clearly discouraged. “I don’t know why I didn’t do better,” he said, ________ on a chair. “Maybe I should just ________. I’m not good enough.”

I knew how he felt. The thought ________ us all-that we just aren’t good enough, and that all our hard work won’t ________ in the end and we can’t turn our ________ into success. I don’t have an answer for Sam. I am still ________. How to ________ difficulty, disappointment, rejection, boredom. How to commit ourselves to something because it’s beautiful and worth our while, not because we’re ________ we’ll succeed.

“Maybe you’re not,” I said, looking at my son. To me, he is incredible and accomplished, but I know he is ________ by doubt just like anyone. “But I, for one, don’t think that’s been decided yet.”

To devote time to something with no guarantee of its ________ is risky and terrifying. But, then again, ________ is everything. And we don’t need to be a math person to know that.