David was an 8-year-old boy living in Memphis with his family. When 4 years old, David got his face burnt by hot water, leaving scars (伤疤) on his cheeks. David was home-schooled by his mother, but as he grew older, his parents decided to send him to a private school. David was afraid of being made fun of, but his parents encouraged him to face everything bravely.

When he began school, other kids didn’t want to be his friends because of his scars. Luckily, a girl named Angel offered to sit with him and helped him go through that difficult time. They became good friends, chatting happily and sharing what they were interested in.

As time went by, David’s excellent learning ability and kind behavior made him popular with the students. Since David was good at science, his classmates would turn to him for help whenever they had problems with their studies. David was always glad to help them.

On Halloween, a variety of holiday activities were held on campus. Everyone wore costumes (化装服) they liked. David wore a mask (面具), and no one could tell it was him. Unrecognized, David was walking through the classroom backdoor when he overheard his classmate Tom’s comment, “David’s face is the ugliest one I have ever seen.” Hearing this, David felt upset and depressed. He ran away secretly. Angel happened to stand behind David and saw what happened, but it was too late to stop it. As David’s best friend at school, Angel thought David was a good boy who should be treated kindly.

Finally, I had done it. I had really done it. I played the drama successfully in the school hall. But a few months earlier, I would never have imagined acting in a play in front of hundreds of people. But when the time came, I got up on stage and faced one of my greatest fears and discovered I could do more than I ever thought. I found a new person inside me, a much more daring, outgoing person who had been hidden all along, just waiting for the opportunity to appear.

Without my teacher, Mrs. Green, I might never have found that opportunity. In the first grade, I was extremely shy. I had friends, but it just wasn’t in my personality to be very outgoing, even when I knew someone well. I was afraid I would do or say something wrong, so usually I just smiled and listened to other people’s conversations. I did well in school and I loved to write. However, I would escape into my writing, where I could be myself and never had to worry about what other people thought of me. In fact I was never shy in my stories.

My teacher, Mrs. Green, always encouraged me to write more. She told our class to go after our dreams and dig in with both hands. I think she was the first person to see my inner strength. One day, she announced that our class was going to perform a play she had written. “I’ll begin to invite everyone tomorrow,” she said. “I need someone who is not afraid to be on stage in front of a lot of people to play the lead part of Dorothy. Anybody wants to try?” Many excited hands shot up, and mine, of course, was not one of them. Mrs. Green smiled. “We’ll talk more about it tomorrow,” she said. Then the bell rang and my classmates slowly left the classroom.

When I was loading up my backpack, Mrs. Green invited me to her office.

Hearing Mrs. Green’s words, I realized that it was time to made a change.

My husband, Tom, has always been good with animals, but I was still amazed when he befriended a female grouse (松鸡). It’s unusual for a grouse to have any contact with people. In fact, they’re hard to spot, because they usually fly off when they hear humans approaching.

This grouse came into our lives in spring. Tom was working out in the field when he noticed her walking around at the edge of the field. She was surprisingly unafraid and seemed to be curious about what he was doing.

Tom saw the friendly bird several times, and she got more comfortable around him. We quickly grew fond of the bird and decided to call her Mildred.

One day, as Tom was working, Mildred came within a few feet of him to watch. Tom pretended (假装) he didn’t see her and kept working to see what she would do next. Apparently, she didn’t like to be ignored (忽视). She’d run up and peck (啄) at Tom’s hands, then back off to see what he would do. This went on for about 20 minutes, until Mildred became tired of the game and left.

As spring went and summer came, Mildred started to come out more and more often. Eventually Mildred felt comfortable enough to jump up on Tom’s leg and stay long enough for me to get a picture of the two of them together. This friendly grouse soon felt comfortable not just with our family, but with anybody who walked or drove by.

When hunting season opened, we put a sign (标牌) at the end of our driveway asking hunters not to shoot our pet grouse. My father, who lived down the road also warned people not to shoot her. In fact, hunters would stop and take pictures, because they had never seen anything like her.

One day, when Tom worked as usual, Mildred didn’t show up.

While all of us thought Mildred was dead, she came out the next spring with many small cute grouses.

Some say everyday miracles are predestined (注定的) — All that’s necessary is readiness, the right circumstance for the appointed meeting. And it can happen anywhere.

In 1999, 11-year-old Kevin Stephan was a bat boy for his younger brother’s Little League team in Lancaster, New York. It was an early evening in late July. Kevin was standing on the grass away from the plate, where another youngster was warming up for the next game. Swinging his bat back and forth, and giving it all the power an elementary school kid could give, the boy brought the bat back hard and hit Kevin in the chest. His heart stopped.

When Kevin fell to the ground, the mother of one of the players rushed out of the stands to his aid. Penny Brown hadn’t planned to be there that day, but at the last minute, she changed her shift(轮班)at the hospital, and she was given the night off. Penny bent over the senseless boy, his face already starting to turn blue, and gave CPR, breathing into his mouth and giving chest compressions (按压). And he came to life.

After his recovery, he learned some of the emergency first-aid techniques that had saved his life. He studied hard in school and was saving money for college by working as a dishwasher in a local restaurant in his spare time.

One day, when Kevin was working in the kitchen he heard someone screaming, “A customer was choking.”

It was then that Kevin suddenly recognized the woman customer he just had helped was Penny Broun.

Forty-three years seems like along time to remember the name of a mere acquaintance (认识的人). I have forgotten the name of the old lady to whom I delivered newspapers, but I can’t forget the lessons he taught me in forgiveness.

On a winter afternoon, a friend and I were throwing stones on to the roof of the old lady’s house. I found myself a perfectly smooth rock and threw it out. The stone was too smooth, however, so it slipped from my hand as I let it go and headed straight not for the roof but for a small window of the house.

At the sound of broken glass, we knew we were in trouble. We turned and ran away quickly. I was too scared about getting caught that first night to be concerned about the old lady with the broken window in winter. However, a few days later, when I was sure that I hadn’t been discovered, I started to feel guilty for her misfortune.

She still greeted me with a smile each day when I gave her the paper, but I was no longer able to act comfortably in her presence. I made up my mind that I would save my paper delivery money, and in three weeks I had the seven dollars that I thought would cover the cost of her window.

I put the money in an envelope with a note explaining that I was sorry for breaking her window and hoped that the seven dollars would cover the cost for repairing it. I waited until dark and put the letter that I didn’t sign in her letterbox.

The next day, I delivered the newspaper to her as usual.

After several cookies, I felt an envelope and pulled it out of the bag.

I was at Lens Crafters waiting to pick up my new pair of glasses. A mom as well as her little girl walked in. The mom was probably in her late twenties and the little girl was about five.

Both of their clothes were badly dated to say the least. It was obvious that the family’s financial windfall (意外之财) had not yet arrived. I overheard a comment the comment made to the saleslady that she was in between job 1 and job 2 of the day, so she didn't have a lot of time.

The little girl and the mom proceeded around the store looking at these little tiny frames for the girl’s face. The saleslady was helping them try on frames and pulling aside her favorites.

You knew how some little kids actually looked ten times cuter in glasses, and so the little girl did. She found these cute little frames with a butterfly on them. She was so happy, smiling from ear to ear while she looked at herself in the mirror.

The saleslady rang the glasses up on the till (收银台). The mom pulled out a coupon (优惠券), and the saleslady stared blankly at the coupon. She then explained that for some reason this coupon could not be used, pointing out the miniscule (极小的) words printed at the bottom.

Then the mom chatted back and forth for a bit with the saleslady and then finally leaned down to her daughter and explained to her that there would be no glasses that day, maybe next month she said.

The little girl’s eyes started to tear up. The mom leaned a little closer and told her it would be OK and that she needed a little more time to save up for them. The little girl responded, “But Mommy, I can’t see and I want to be able to see when I start school next week. I want to do well, Mommy! What if I’m in the back?”

Seeing this, I quietly called the saleslady over.

The saleslady was so moved.

One weekend in July, Jane and her husband, Tom, had driven three hours to camp overnight by a lake in the forest. Unfortunately, on the way an unpleasant subject came up and they started to quarrel. By the time they reached the lake, Jane was so angry that she said to Tom, “I'm going to find a better spot for us to camp” and walked away.

With no path to follow, Jane just walked on for quite a long time. After she had climbed to a high place, she turned around, hoping to see the lake. To her surprise, she saw nothing but forest and, far beyond, a snowcapped mountain top. She suddenly realized that she was lost.

“Tom!” she cried. “Help!”

No reply. If only she had not left her mobile phone in that bag with Tom. Jane kept moving, but the farther she walked, the more confused she became. As night was beginning to fall, Jane was so tired that she had to stop for the night. Lying awake in the dark, Jane wanted very much to be with Tom and her family. She wanted to hold him and tell him how much she loved him.

Jane rose at the break of day, hungry and thirsty. She could hear water trickling (滴落) somewhere at a distance. Quickly she followed the sound to a stream. To her great joy, she also saw some berry bushes. She drank and ate a few berries. Never in her life had she tasted anything better.

As she picked her way carefully along the stream, Jane heard a helicopter. Is that for me? Unfortunately,the trees made it impossible for people to see her from above. A few minutes later, another helicopter flew overhead. Jane took off her yellow blouse, thinking that she should go to an open area and flag them if they came back again.