Georgia, a friend of my wife's, was recently divorced and trying to raise her
two sons when the Gulf War broke out. She heard about soldiers in the service
who had no family and needed pen pals. Letters addressed to "Any Soldier" were
distributed by commanding officers who noticed any soldiers getting little or no
mail. Georgia wrote to 25 such soldiers almost daily, most of them men.
Keeping up with 25 pen pals on a daily basis almost consumed Georgia's time and
talents. She sent poems, little stories, and words of hope and encouragement.
When there were time constraints, she would write one letter and copy it for
everyone. Greetings were sent whenever she knew about a special event, like a
birthday.
One day, Georgia received a letter from a soldier that was depressed and
discouraged. She pondered as to how she could help lift his spirits. It was then
that she noticed that at work there were paper clips of various colours. Georgia
took one of the yellow paper clips and photo copied it in the palm of her hand.
She sent this picture with the paper clip with the following message:
"This yellow paper clip that you see in my hand represents a hug that I am
sending to you. You can carry this paper clip in a pocket or anywhere, and
whenever you feel down, you can just touch and hold it and know that somebody
cares about you, and would give you a hug if she were there."
Georgia sent a copy of this picture along with a paper clip and the message to
each of her other correspondents. After the war ended, Georgia received one of
the pictures of her hand holding the yellow paper clip, and on the back were
over 150 signatures of people that had been given her "hug."
During the years, Georgia named other paper clips. Pink came to mean a kiss,
green was for good luck, and so on. Years later, Georgia was giving a class as
part of a seminar for positive thinking. She shared with the members of the
class her paper clip symbolism, and made a bracelet of multicoloured paper clips
for each of them. One of the women exclaimed "So you're the one!"
The class member told Georgia that she was visiting her brother and needed
something to hold papers together. She had noticed a yellow paper clip on the
refrigerator held there with a magnet. She borrowed the paper clip for her
papers. When the brother saw it, he grabbed it and scolded her, and told her
never to touch the yellow paper clip again. Now she knew why.
No one will never know how far her message has spread, nor how many lives have
been touched by a simple yellow paper clip.
Author unknown. If anyone has a proprietary interest in this story please
authenticate and I will be happy to credit, or remove, as the circumstances
dictate.
Thanks to HeartWarming
heartwarming-subscribe@onelist.com
The Illustrator: This daily newsletter is dedicated to encouraging
everyone to look towards Jesus as the source of all the solutions to our
problems. It contains a daily inspirational story, a Bible verse and encouraging
messages. HTML and plain text versions available.
The Nugget: Published three times a week, this newsletter features inspirational devotionals and mini-sermons dedicated to drawing mankind closer to each other and to Christ.