I’m sure that there have been times in our lives when everything seems to go wrong and life is made more difficult, but we have no choice but to carry on as best we can.

Thomas Alva Edison was born in Ohio in 1847 and was a man who absolutely refused to be defeated in anything he attempted. This famous inventor designed among lots of things, the incandescent lamp, which was the forerunner of the present day light bulb. He began his career in 1863 as an apprentice telegrapher, at a time when the only source of electricity was primitive batteries. His inventive skills soon had him establishing a research laboratory which he funded by running an engineering business.

Disaster struck one freezing cold winter’s night in December 1909, when fire broke out at his factory. Within minutes the whole premises was ablaze and by the morning everything had been destroyed. At the height of the fire, his son got very concerned when he couldn’t find his father, he wondered that with all his assets destroyed, would his father’s spirit be broken. Suddenly he saw his father in the factory yard, running towards him and crying out, “Quick find your mother and tell her to hurry up, as she’ll never see another fire as big as this one.”

Early next morning, Edison called all of his employees together and announced, “We’re going to rebuild, bigger and better than before.” He instructed one man to hire a crane and another to lease all the available machine shops in the area, then as an afterthought he asked, ”Does anyone know where we can borrow some money?”

The moral of this little story, is that whatever happened to us yesterday is in the past. With God’s help and our strong faith, we can start all over again, with renewed hope for the future.