【推荐1】A boy walked into a candy store with his father and since he was just 6 years old, he was surprised by so many candies on offer. “It’s amazing. What should I _________?” he asked himself. “Come on, son, we don’t have much _________. I have to attend an important meeting,” his dad said.

“These are all my _________ and I don’t know what to choose.” He picked up some bags and then put them _________. He couldn’t make up his mind. “_________, son, we have no time. I’m very _________,” his dad said. So the boy ran around the store _________ again. His eyes moved from one bag to another, _________ all of the sweets looked so good and he couldn’t make up his mind. _________, the dad had enough. He caught his son by the hand and they __________ the store empty-handed. The boy __________. He wanted them all, but ended up with __________ because he couldn’t choose just one.

Some of us are that boy. The __________ is that candy store. We have a great number of choices available (可得到的) to us, but if we don’t make a(n) __________ about our jobs, education, relationships, marriage or other __________ things, we will end up empty-handed. Sometimes we worry about making the __________ choice. What if we __________ the direction that we take and it’s too late to go back? We don’t have to __________ this. How do we __________ whether it is good or not if we don’t make a choice? The bigger __________ is that we make no decision at all and end up going nowhere and doing nothing.

【推荐2】For a long time, I thought a present and a gift were no different. I grew up in a household where presents_________special occasions, say there were always presents for Christmas and our birthdays.

So when I married Gary who did not give presents on a_________basis, I had to make an adjustment. Gary did not wholly avoid gift-giving, though._________noticing how many hours I spend on the_________, he brought home a shoulder pad (垫肩) for the telephone receiver. But mostly, he_________holidays, let alone shop for earrings to_________to me showing his affection.

I tried to change him_________. I bought books for his birthdays and knitted him hats and sweaters for Christmas._________I began to tell him what I wanted, giving_________instructions, but got nowhere.

Last year when the snowstorm__________our town and he was on business, I used his present road scraper(铲土机)to__________both our drive and our neighbors, thinking how__________earrings would have been. Gary had wisely chosen not the thing I__________,but the thing that he knew I would need.

I__________began to understand the difference between a present and a gift. A present is just a thing. But a gift is broader and often cannot be__________. It is a small act of kindness, the__________to bend to another's needs, the sacrifice of time and effort.__________is a gift. Any expression of it, freely given, is a (n)__________from the heart that is immeasurably better than a present.

My insistence on presents must have seemed to Gary a lack of__________for the gifts he had be giving all along, but he never stopped giving them.

Gary will be home this Christmas, but I don't __________a present. I already have the greatest gift.

My heart beat with that feeling, like blood to my body as my fingers flew across the piano keys. As the piece neared the end, I _______ up to take my final bow. For a second, the room was _______. Yet, even in that one second, I had enough time to _______whether I had done perfectly. Then, _______, the applause (掌声) came.

“Thank you… so much,” I said, _______ to the person standing on my other side. Olga, my piano teacher for six years, smiled back at me. “You’ve been an _______ student all these years,” she said, “I hope that whatever you do, you never stop _______”

I leaned forward, _______ I would keep playing because I loved piano, and hugged her.

As it _______, the promises weren’t as meaningful as I’d hoped. Right after the ____________, I kept up my strict practicing schedule every day. ____________, it began slipping away from me. The reason I had stopped taking ____________ was because of my busy schedule with homework. Not long after, I stopped practicing altogether. It was ____________ not to have to stress about piano anymore. But something was ____________ inside of me. I was empty inside.

One day I met Michelle, who had also taken piano lessons from Olga.

“Are you ____________ taking lessons from Olga?” she asked.

“Actually I just quit a while ago,” I replied.

“That’s a ____________,” she responded, “I remember your performance a year ago; it was ____________”

Two days after talking to Michelle, I was at a ____________ what to do. I moved slowly into the living room unconsciously, but in fact I knew ____________ what I was doing.

As the music ____________, a familiar feeling rose inside me.

【推荐1】Tim, my seven-year-old son, is learning to play the drums. It is an___ that has always caught his attentipn ___he hears them played. Before I____his first lessons, drums were all he wanted. At the age of 3 he___ his mini drum set during a show. Using that same drum set he perfected the timing and rhythm of a popular church song____ enough for his mom to sing along to. My son had found his passion at a young age and had a natural____to catch on quickly.

Wanting to act quickly to __ his talent, I immediately signed him up for drum lessons. No sooner had my first payment cleared than his passion __. He did not want to take instructions. He wanted to play the drums_______,       To       him the drums were a way of ___. Ian wanted to “play the beat of his own drum.”

The challenge was that music has more than one __ Rock doesn’t sound like smooth jazz and smooth jazz doesn’t sound like___ You can’t play every __ that exists to the same beat. If ___were a series of songs, the melodies __ could be calming and peacefiil, or violent and chaotic. Each event we face has its____own sound, so we have to learn __ to play the tune of the moment. You should understand that even with all the natural talent in the world there is always___ for improvement.

You can't do it all without ___.

You won’t know how to play every beat life throws at you without practice.

You can’t____talent forever.

【推荐3】A little girl was enjoying the beautiful garden in her home. Her father had a good collection of rare and prized plants, which he ________ with great care.

The girl was ________ by a plant full of delicate flowers. She approached it and admired its striking beauty. Suddenly she ________ that the plant was in a pile of filth (污秽). She could not tolerate the ________ of dirt with such fantastic flowers.

She worked out a plan to clean the plant. She ________ the plant with all her might from the dirt and washed its ________ in running tap water till all traces of dirt were washed away. She then placed the plant on a clean stone and went away, proud that she had done a great ________.

Later the little daughter ran over, followed by her father, to ________ her achievement. “I have cleaned it, Daddy,” she reported ________.

To spot the uprooted plant, which had lain ________ in the baking sun, the father showed her how her treatment had nearly killed the plant and told her that the filthy soil was the best ________ to grow that plant. Hearing that, the girl felt guilty that the plant had suffered by her cleaning.

A great gardener mixes ________ soil for each plant. ________, God provides each of us with the best ________ required for optimum (最佳) spiritual growth. But it may appear to be ________ and we may even complain to God about our difficulty.