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Good Afternoon. Here is a great thought for the day:

Paul was a small boy when his parents bought their first telephone, and he was fascinated to discover a woman lived inside the box. He knew she was there because one day when his mother picked up the receiver, he heard her talk. Her name was "Number Please." Listening to his parents on the phone, Paul soon came to believe there was nothing Number Please didn't know. And one day he finally got to sample her wisdom firsthand.

While his mother was at the market, Paul began playing with his father's tools and whacked his finger with a hammer. It hurt terribly and he had no idea how to make it stop. Then he thought of the phone hanging on a nearby wall. Dragging over a chair, he climbed up and grabbed the receiver.

"Number Please."

"I hurt my finger!" Paul cried.

"What happened?" the operator asked. Paul told his story and she instructed him to go to the icebox, find a piece of ice, and hold it to this finger. Sure enough, the pain subsided.

After that, Paul called Number Please whenever he had a problem — like figuring out what to feed hamsters or how to spell "fix." And when his pet canary died, it was natural that he'd call Number Please for support. "My canary sang so pretty," Paul sobbed. "Why did it have to die?" Number Please had the answer: he didn't always remember there are other worlds to sing in. We just can't hear them.

Paul's family moved across the country shortly afterward, but he never forgot the wise voice on the phone. Years later, as a college student, he traveled back to the old neighborhood and, on a whim, dialed information. The operator came on the line: "Number Please." He couldn't believe his ears — it was the same voice. "How do you spell fix?" he asked. There was a long pause, then finally she replied, "How's your finger?" "Hello, Number Please," Paul said. She laughed and said her name was Sally. "You'll never know how much those calls meant to me," Paul told her.

"No," she said. "You'll never know how much they meant to me. I never had children, so I always looked forward to talking to you." They chatted a few minutes and Paul promised to call again the next time he was in town.

Three months later, Paul visited again, but when he dialed information another operator told him Sally had recently died following a long illness. Dumbstruck, Paul thanked her and started to hang up. "Wait," the woman said. "Is your name Paul?" "Why yes," he answered. "Sally gave me a message in case you called. She said, 'Tell Paul there are still other worlds to sing in.'"

It's the people in our lives that are important.

Have a wonderful day.

"Each morning is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When the sun rises tomorrow this day will be gone forever, in its place will be something you have left — may it be something good. Follow your heart, it knows what to do."

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