By Steve Goodier

Buckminster Fuller once said, “The minute you choose to do what you really want to do it’s a different kind of life.” And it’s not about what you’re getting PAID to do! If you want to live abundantly, decide what you really want and figure out a way to do it. Be clear and live with intent.

You may have heard of Fred Lebow. Fred complained to his doctor that he lacked energy. His doctor advised him to take up running in order to increase his stamina. He fell in love with it! He was 39 years old when he entered his first race — and did horribly. He beat only one other contestant…a 72-year-old man. But he loved it!

Fred decided what he really wanted to do — and he did it in his spare time. He joined the New York Road Runners Club and organized New York City’s first marathon race. But what Fred truly wanted to do, even more than run, was to bring people together. And that is what he did. He believed that anybody should be able to run — people of all ages, any background, professional or amateur, and of any country. Today, more than 28,000 people of all backgrounds and nationalities compete in the NYC Marathon.

Not everyone in New York was excited about people running through their neighborhoods. Fred was approached by a youth gang that warned him that nobody had better run through their turf. “That’s great,” Fred enthused. “I need someone to protect the runners in your area, and you look like just the fellows to do it.” He gave them each a hat, shirt and jacket and that year, when the marathon went through their neighborhood, these young men proudly guarded the runners along their way.

Fred decided what was truly important to him and he found a way to do it. He lived with intent. That single decision made his life remarkably different.

In 1990, Fred Lebow found he had a brain tumor. In 1992 he ran his final race. He crossed the finish line holding the hand of his friend and Norwegian Olympic medalist, Grete Waitz. A bronze statue was created of Fred in his running clothes, checking his watch. It is now placed at the finish line of every race. Fred died in 1994. But as one sports writer said, “Fate handed him a short race. With his gall, with his love of life, Fred Lebow turned it into a marathon.”

Fred would say that it’s not about how long you live, but how you run the race of life. Do you run it with intent?

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

Adapted from an article by Ryan Maye Handy in the Colorado Springs Gazette, 10/12/11

Brittany met the man who would later become her husband in Las Vegas in February. It was a whirlwind romance – like something out of novel, as her friends describe it.

She was in town for business, busily ushering a VIP group out of a hotel and onto a golf course. He and some Army buddies were in town for a good time.

When Josh saw Brittany across the hotel lobby, he walked straight over and introduced himself to her.

“I’m Josh,” he said.

She had noticed him, too, but Brittany explained to him, “I’m working.”

Still, Josh won her over with his broad smile and infectious laugh. They met later and danced the night away at a Blue Man Group concert. And they promised to stay in touch.

Four months later, on May 31, Brittany and Josh were married. Only a week later, Josh shipped out for Afghanistan. He had served in the Army six years and considered it the ideal profession.

Brittany says Josh’s insatiable thirst for knowledge fueled his enthusiasm for military life. He completed two tours in Korea, and traveled extensively around Asia, falling in love with Vietnam.

He was looking forward to his deployment to Afghanistan, his first with the 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team in the 4th Infantry Division.

“He was so handsome in uniform,” Brittany said. “The first time I had to see him (in it), I almost passed out.”

With Josh’s deployment happening just days after their wedding, the couple postponed their honeymoon, but spent as much time together as possible.

They decided on a honeymoon trip to Ireland when Josh came home, and Brittany planned to surprise her husband with a castle tour.

This love story might sound like a fairy tale, but recently it became what Brittany calls a nightmare.

On the morning of October tenth, Brittany answered the door of her Kernersville home to see service members in uniform standing before her.
“They were at my porch telling me that he was gone,” she said.

Captain Joshua Lawrence was one of two captains killed in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, when insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their unit.

The soldiers, who had both received the Bronze Star, were serving in their first tour of Afghanistan.

Brittany says she hasn’t been able to sleep and is haunted by the thought the man she calls her hero won’t be coming home.

“I thought the day (in June) I had to say good-bye to my soldier was the hardest day of my life,” she said. “I was wrong.”

Still, Brittany is finding strength in her husband’s legacy: the people who loved him. And she remains a steadfast supporter of the U.S. military and their mission to protect this country.

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

By Bob Perks

Something warm touched my soul as I stood in the cold, early morning hours. The sun breaking the horizon’s grip, poured over the tops of distant trees as a single beam of light glanced off my left shoulder.

My white t-shirt seemed to glow suddenly and with it my heart sighed, “thank God.”

It was a time when darkness filled my days and evening hours were wasted on “what if’s” and “if only.”

I hated the night.  In doing so, my sleep deficit turned my days into a zombie-like existence.  Eventually life seemed like a waste of time.

So what got me through it all?

Through the years I’ve spoken with, smiled at, and sung about my forever confidante making it the focus of many a lonely night.

I’ve walked the shores of distant lands with its familiar face looking after me.  I cried and laughed a hundred times over love lost and gained.  I searched along the mountain side eagerly looking for a better, clearer view of its coming and going.

Seeing it unexpectedly fuller, brighter and in more detail, I’d always rush to a phone to share it with someone, anyone who appreciated the afterglow of day.

Growing up thinking it really was made of cheese, I decided after seeing it through a telescope, it had to be “Swiss.”

In love songs they call it by name,  ”Moon River,” Fly me to the Moon,”  “Shine on Harvest Moon,” “It’s only a Paper Moon,” “Blue Moon,” “Moonlight Sonata” and more.

But what has always stuck with me is when they speak about, “The man in the Moon.”

I just could never see it.

Although the Moon and I go way back and even until this very day, I cannot go out at night without looking for my friend.  I will not even begin to try to convince you that the moon got me through it all.

No, like everything else in my life, it was the “Man behind the moon.”  The Creator of all things.

When I stood on the shore, His waves danced at my feet washing away my cares.

When I cried because young love was ripping my heart out He lifted my spirits by reminding me love will forever be a part of my life.

When I swooned at the very thought of someone loving me in return, He gently said, “I told you so.”

And even when I cursed the night
and wished the moon away
He always seemed to make things right
by giving me the day.

The sun will shine, the birds will sing
and I promise very soon
You’ll see the joy that He will bring
“The Man behind the moon”

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

By Bob Perks

“It would just look better with the others,” I reasoned.

“But moving it might kill it,” my wife said.

“Still, it looks lost without the others. I’ll do my best,” I replied.

“I never promised you a rose garden.”

Okay, I had to say it.

It’s the title of a song and very appropriate. We purchased three new rose bushes. We already had one in a small enclosed garden and every year it would only yield one or two roses.

But they were beauties.

I believe it happened because all the other plants in that little garden overwhelmed the rose bush.

So, with the addition of three new bushes, I decided to pull the old one out of the garden and place it with the others. I knew the shock of the transfer would cause it to weaken a bit.

It did. In fact, Marianne was right. It almost died.

One of the tallest, single branches, which was the most probable one to produce a rose, slumped dramatically.

After a few days the limp branch nearly touched the ground.

“It’ll come back,” I said trying to convince her I was right in doing this.

After a few days most of the plant seemed to respond.

But, in general, it looked bad.

“Should I cut that branch back?” she asked one day.

“No, just leave it,” I said.

After about a week I approached the plant, cutter in hand, and reaching for it discovered, although still slumped and bent over, it had completely recovered. The branch was strong and firm.

Like author/speaker, Zig Ziglar describes in one of his speeches, “the pan of biscuits was placed in the oven. One biscuit squatted to rise but got cooked in the squat!”

This branch slumped over from the drastic change and nearly succumbed to it all, instead of completely rising up, regained full strength and abilities to produce a single rose.

Like seeing someone with physical challenges you might think they were unable to live life to the fullest. You’d be wrong. I have yet to meet anyone with such challenges who gave in, gave up and let go.

No, they too, were “cooked in the squat” and learned to live within the newly defined life to become all they could be. Strong within the boundaries of their new life, they blossom to become all they were created to be.

What challenges are you facing right now that for the time being have you beaten down?

Call upon every resource necessary and work within the new life God is providing for you.

“Bloom where you are planted.”

Be “bent on survival!”

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

A 2-year-old girl watches her daddy read her a bedtime story. Nothing unusual there, only this dad is in the military, so he’s reading to her via a pre-recorded video. She still seems to completely love it, and her dad. Just wait until the goodnight hug, when the cuteness bubbles over.

By Michael T. Smith

A few weeks after my first wife, Georgia, was called to heaven, I was cooking dinner for my son and myself. For a vegetable, I decided on frozen peas. As I was cutting open the bag, it slipped from my hands and crashed to the floor. The peas, like marbles, rolled everywhere. I tried to use a broom, but with each swipe the peas rolled across the kitchen, bounced off the wall on the other side and rolled in another direction.

My mental state at the time was fragile. Losing a spouse is an unbearable pain. I got on my hands and knees and pulled them into a pile to dispose of. I was half laughing and half crying as I collected them. I could see the humor in what happened, but it doesn’t take much for a person dealing with grief to break down.

For the next week, every time I was in the kitchen, I would find a pea that had escaped my first cleanup. In a corner, behind a table leg, in the frays at the end of a mat, or hidden under a heater, they kept turning up. Eight months later I pulled out the refrigerator to clean, and found a dozen or so petrified peas hidden underneath.

At the time I found those few remaining peas, I was in a new relationship with a wonderful woman I met in a widow/widower support group. After we married, I was reminded of those peas under the refrigerator. I realized my life had been like that bag of frozen peas. It had shattered. My wife was gone. I was in a new city with a busy job and a son having trouble adjusting to his new surroundings and the loss of his mother. I was a wreck. I was a bag of spilled, frozen peas. My life had come apart and scattered.

When life gets you down; when everything you know comes apart; when you think you can never get through the tough times, remember, it is just a bag of scattered, frozen peas. The peas can be collected and life will move on. You will find all the peas. First the easy peas come together in a pile. You pick them up and start to move on. Later you will find the bigger and harder to find peas. When you pull all the peas together, life will be whole again.

The life you know can be scattered at any time. You will move on, but how fast you collect your peas depends on you. Will you keep scattering them around with a broom, or will you pick them up one-by-one and put your life back together?

How will you collect your peas?

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

By Bob Perks

If you want to be the first to see what the day has to offer, stand on the hill and be the first to see the sun.

Keep in mind that there is a possibility that someone else is standing on a taller mountain.

It really shouldn’t matter. Eventually, even those down in the valley will see the light.

If you want no part of the day, try staying in bed.

Chances are the sun will find you, still.

The sun waits for no one.

At the back of my property, we placed a converted shed we call “Hope House.”

Long before I am ready the house up on the hill begins to glow ever so brightly.

First the peak and then washing slowly over the top of the door, it reflects back toward where I am standing.

Imagine a spot light on one single object on a darkened stage. There, now fully exposed, the house on the hill beckons me and I run up the pathway in a hurry to claim my spot in the sun before it even kisses the petunias in the window boxes.

For me “Hope” glows in the early morning sun but I need not see it to know it’s always there.

I have seen the sun rise for more than 59 years. It is only lately that I appreciate it more.

Get up before the dawn and with the rising of the sun you will not waste a moment.

For it is not just another day…it is another chance.

So, what does it bring?

That is best answered by asking “What will you bring into it?”

The sun does not bring sadness, nor joy. You do.

The sun does not create success or failure. You do.

The sun does not make opportunities. You do.

God does not sound an alarm nor call your name in the early morning hours begging you to participate.

You must “Rise to meet the sun.”

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

By Joseph Walker

There’s a new guy in the office.

I don’t know his name, but he seems nice enough. He’s pleasant, but kind of quiet. He seems bright. He smiles a lot.

A few days after he started here he asked me to provide some information for a project he’s working on, and he asked nicely. It took me a few days to get the information, and he was nicely patient. And when I delivered it to him, he thanked me. Nicely.

So clearly he’s… you know… nice.

When we walk by each other in the hallway we smile and say hi. Actually, he says, “Hi, Joe.” I just say “hi” because… well… I don’t know his name, and I’m embarrassed to ask. I mean, he’s been here for a couple of weeks. I SHOULD know his name. But I don’t. So I just say “hi” when I see him. And I smile.

Last week I overheard one of his colleagues talking to him. I listened for a minute to see if his name was mentioned. The new guy mentioned the other person’s name a couple of times, but the other person never called the new guy by name. It occurred to me that maybe the other person didn’t know the new guy’s name either. Maybe nobody in the office knows his name. He’s just… the new guy, and he’s doomed to be the new guy even when he’s not new anymore because nobody knows what else to call him.

I passed him in the hall again yesterday.

As usual, he said “Hi, Joe.” And as usual, I just said, “Hi!” Well, actually, I said “Hey, how’s it going?” If someone says “Hi, Joe” and you just say “Hi” back, it sounds like you don’t know his name — which is a bad thing, especially if you really DON’T know his name. So you have to say something else, something that sounds warm and familiar — like you DO know his name — without… actually KNOWING his name.

So anyway, I pass the new guy, he says “Hi, Joe” and I say, “Hey, how’s it going?” And I move on down the hall feeling pretty good about how well I’m coping with not knowing his name, when I hear a familiar voice behind me.

“I don’t know you!”

It was Sylvia, one of the kindest, most genuine people I know. Sylvia is friendly, gregarious and warm, a welcoming mother figure to everyone in the office. She had been walking a few paces behind me, and evidently she didn’t know the new guy either.

But rather than just smile and say “hi,” Sylvia did what Sylvia does. Not only did she announce that she didn’t know him, she asked him his name, told him her name and engaged him in conversation — clearly an interpersonal tactic aimed at getting personal information out of him. Before long they were chatting like old friends about some things they had in common.

And suddenly for Sylvia, the new guy wasn’t the new guy anymore.

He was Mitch, a colleague with children, hobbies, interests and a little shared history.

I was stunned — and a little embarrassed — by the ease with which Sylvia negotiated that transition. Turns out it doesn’t take much to turn an unfamiliar face in the hall into a friend. You just have to get over yourself and reach out a little. Ask a question. Learn a name.

And just like that — no more new guy.

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

Our friend Laura Humphreys with Sylvan Learning Center called this week and said she has over 100 positions that need to be filled ASAP, and she knew that we have a lot of hard-working friends who may be looking for a job.  Here’s the skinny:

Sylvan is looking for people to tutor students at area schools (in High Point, Asheboro, and Thomasville) after school in reading and math.  Most of the schools are M/W or W/Th.  Each school time is slightly different, but would be within the 2 – 5pm time frame.

Applicants must be able to pass a background check, drug test and have reliable transportation.  Strong candidates will have a degree in education, or have a work experience with children.  A STRONG love of children and learning is a MUST!!! Training will be provided.

This is a part-time, temporary contract position.  The program will run from mid November until about April.

Applications should be in NO LATER THAN October 31st.

Resumes may be submitted at  sylvanses at sylvansuccess.net or you may drop it off at Sylvan Learning Center, 1840 Eastchester Drive (across from Oak Hollow Festival Park) in High Point.

Call (336) 841-5522 for more information.

By Dr. Fred Craddock of Emory University

A number of years ago a seminary professor was vacationing with his wife in Gatlinburg, Tennessee where they were eating breakfast at a little restaurant, hoping to enjoy a quiet family meal.

While they were waiting for their food, they noticed a distinguished looking, white-haired man moving from table to table visiting with the guests.  The professor leaned over and whispered to his wife:

“I hope he doesn’t come over here.”  But sure enough, the man did come over to their table.

“Where are you folks from?” he asked in a friendly voice.

“Oklahoma,” they answered.

“Great to have you here in Tennessee,” the stranger said. “What do you do for a living?”

“I teach at a seminary,” he replied.

“Oh, you teach preachers how to preach?  Well, I’ve got a really great story for you.”  And with that, the gentleman pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with the couple.

“See that mountain over there?” (pointing out the restaurant window).  Not far from the base of that mountain, there was a boy born to an unwed mother.  He had a hard time growing up, because every place he went, he was always asked the same question:

‘Hey boy, Who’s your daddy?’

Whether he was at school, in the grocery store or drug store, people would ask the same question, “Who’s your daddy?” He would hide at recess and lunchtime from other students. He would avoid going into stores because that question hurt him so bad.

When he was about 12 years old, a new preacher came to his church.  He would always go in late and slip out early to avoid hearing the question, “Who’s your daddy?”  But one day, the new preacher said the benediction so fast he got caught and had to walk out with the crowd.

Just about the time he got to the back door, the new preacher not knowing anything about him, put his hand on his shoulder and asked him,

“Son, who’s your daddy?”

The whole church got deathly quiet.  He could feel every eye in the church looking at him.  By now, everyone knew the answer to the question, ‘Who’s your daddy?’

This new preacher, though, sensed the situation around him and using discernment that only the Holy Spirit could give, said the following to that scared little boy…

‘Wait a minute!’ he said, ‘I know who you are.  I see the family resemblance now.  You are a child of God.’

With that he patted the boy on his shoulder and said:

‘Boy, you’ve got a great inheritance.  Go and claim it.’

With that, the boy smiled for the first time in a long time and walked out the door a changed person.  He was never the same again.  Whenever anybody asked him, ‘Who’s your Daddy?’ he’d just tell them,

‘I’m a Child of God.’

The distinguished gentleman got up from the table and said, “Isn’t that a great story?”

The professor responded that it really was a great story! As the man turned to leave, he said,

“You know, if that new preacher hadn’t told me that I was one of God’s children, I probably never would have amounted to anything!”  And he walked away.

The seminary professor and his wife were stunned. He called the waitress over and asked her,

“Do you know who that man was who just left who was sitting at our table?”  The waitress grinned and said,

“Of course.  Everybody here knows him.  That’s Ben Hooper. He’s the former governor of Tennessee!”

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!