When A Diamond Finds a Diamond
Mark Epple, an unemployed architect, finds a 12-carat diamond ring and returns it to its rightful owner.
After enjoying a skiing vacation in the Colorado mountains, Epple was waiting in the drop-off lane at the airport on his way back to his Minneapolis home. He noticed a ring shining in the bright sunlight, with a yellow stone so big that Mark thought it must be a child's costume jewelry.
Once home, Mark inspected the ring more closely and realized that the stone was a genuine 12-carat diamond. The ring was actually given to Janice Ward by her husband, Roger, on the occasion of their 30th anniversary. She had taken it off in the car on her way to airport, placing it on her lap, and it later fell when she stepped out.
There was a heavy snowstorm the following morning, and the strenuous search by the county's curbside staff and American Airline employees went in vain. They searched ramps, the parking lot and baggage area, and dug through snow to no avail.
Janice spent a sleepless night thinking of her diamond ring, and wished that someone would find it and use it, deliberating only on the positive aspects. It was a great surprise to her when the airport authority called her back with the news of the ring.
On this TV interview, the interviewer asked Mark, “Anybody else might have kept it; why did you give it back?” Mark replied, “It's not mine.”
Mark wanted nothing in return for his good deed, but he got something anyway.
The question is, where do these Mark Epples come from, and what do they teach us? In our time, when the crime rate is so high, specially in the big cities, when we are taught to treat all strangers as potential threat to us, how do the real diamonds like Mark Epple survive? How do they overcome great temptations, specially at the moment they are down?
In that there is a lesson for the rest of us that indeed all those story of angels, and God's trials may perhaps be not entirely our imagination.
Follow Technorati