True and Inspirational Stories

Real People - Real Success

Enjoy our original, inspirational stories about real people realizing their dreams. These accounts of lifelong dreams coming true will inspire you and hopefully encourage you to pursue your own aspirations. Inspirational stories can lift your spirits, help you make decisions and point you in the right direction mentally.

We enjoy reading these inspiring stories because they encourage us to keep pressing on toward our own dreams. Also, it makes our hearts glad to see other people who have experienced their dreams coming true. Much of life can appear dark, hard, unfair yet when we look at the beauty in someone else's life we are reminded that not all of life is depressing. Most of this life is beautiful and filled with loving people.

After 36 years of teaching at Texas A&M and a very successful career in his preferred field of interest, my daughter’s grandfather, Papa, alongside his lovely wife, retired and moved their residence out of state. When looking for someone to inspire my retirement dreams, I did not have to look far. This couple have been and continue to be a source of inspiration for those who know them.

Partly due to health reasons and partially to follow a dream, they decided to move to Albuquerque, New Mexico. After so many years of living in the same community and with deep roots, they dared displace themselves. Making such an enormous change upon retirement and leaving their deep friendships and community involvement must have been challenging. Yet since they felt drawn there and as they began to discover the beauty and rich cultural background offered, they began to reap more than just physical benefits.

Leaving so many connections behind and the familiarities of a well-established home could lead to feelings of disillusionment. They chose to brave those challenges by pursuing their passions, interests and new friendships. Through efforts to establish church membership, community involvement, continued professional interests and travel, they created what appears to be the life of their dreams. Joining breakfast groups and working the voting polls, they support their political beliefs through various means., Taking tours like the Smithsonian Tour of the Spoleto Festival and singing with the University Chorus are just a few of their retirement activities. Becoming involved with organizations like the Albuquerque Museum Foundation, they are always in the know about available, interesting exhibits. Working with programs like University Showcase, at a local radio station, keeps Papa informed and connected as well as utilizes his talents and expertise.

In addition to these activities, they are health conscious and incorporate both a healthy diet and exercise into their lifestyle. They have maintained strong family connections through emails, letters, birthday and holiday celebrations, and phone calls. Even though they live out of state, they are visited often by friends and family. Because of their awareness of their city and state, we have experienced some wonderful sighting-seeing when we visited. Whether it was hiking on Sandia or visiting the ancient home of the cliff dwellers, they were never lacking for recreational ideas.

Certainly one of their secrets to a winning retirement was being financially prepared. Another key to their success has been their continued interest in learning. Whether they were at home or abroad with a local tour group, they found educational opportunities like attending lectures while traveling. When I think about this couple in retirement, I am truly inspired to lead a fuller more rewarding lifestyle both now and in the future and I imagine my retirement to be very much like theirs.

For Educational Inspiration

Sometimes in the beginning, a dream may be just a small stirring, a faint idea. The thought will come to mind again and again, always seemingly impossible. Something inside though will grow stronger, a force that will not let go. As you think about the idea, you will begin to see a way to make it happen. It will become a possibility and a desire will build inside until you see it come to pass. The idea will not go away. You will be reminded by something persistently leading you in that direction.

As a child, the classroom was a magical place. I could hardly wait each day to be in my seat and hear what my teachers had to say. I loved learning. My education in the classroom, however, was cut short. Circumstances beyond my control got in the way and I found myself married at fourteen years of age.

On September 1st, the yellow school bus passed me by. I remember standing in the yard watching it go out of sight. It was an overwhelming disappointment. I recognized that perhaps I’d never step my foot in a classroom again. I had finished the eighth grade. As far as I could see in my future, a formal education was over and done with.

I saw teenagers going on and graduating from high school and I knew something was terribly missing in my life.

Life has a way of pushing you on to the next level. I had begun a course I had to finish. The dream never left me to get a high school diploma and I knew my life was on a course I had to finish. I learned to daydream, by that I refer to imagining in your mind the dream becoming a reality. You can see it happening as you are going through the process.

I lived through the birth of two wonderful children and the end of a long, first marriage. Several years later I later found myself married again to a wonderful man, Buddy, and gave birth to a sweet baby girl. Shortly after, I was working in a dress factory making minimum wage when tragedy struck. I learned that my husband had a disease they thought was muscular dystrophy.

Although he was limited in his ability to work, he could drive a tractor. He farmed watermelons and raised cattle. With me working, he made a crop in the summer and we lived fairly well. It was during the month of June and my husband provided the daily care for our baby girl. He had 43 acres of land leased for watermelons and should have been plowing that day. I came home and saw he had not plowed that day. I asked our little four-year-old daughter, What is daddy doing? She said, He’s sleeping.

The next day, I made an appointment to see a cardiologist and we went at the scheduled time. After the test, Dr. Brown, I will never forget his name, asked me to come into his office. Without compassion nor any display of emotion, he said, Mrs. Boyd, your husband has six months to live, perhaps a year. My husband and I never spoke of it; there were no tears. Instead, an overwhelming determination came over me. As we left the office, I said to Buddy, I’ll make the watermelon crop.

The next day my husband took me to ten acres of sandy loam soil. We got on the tractor and he taught me how to turn the tractor around and I began to lay-off rows to plant watermelon seed. He and my little daughter would sit at the end of the rows and I would plow all day. These were the most wonderful days of my life as I spent them with my husband and our young daughter. Eventually we marketed over a million pounds of watermelons.

I heard about the GED (General Education Diploma) and so I took the test. With God as my witness, I scored above average on it. I could now go to a community college. In spite of the reality of our sad future bearing down upon me, I had no time to feel sorry for myself. I had a job to do. The dream (once seemingly impossible) was becoming a reality. I asked, Can I go to college? They said, Yes! They would support and encourage me all the way. I had dreamed for twenty four years of this becoming a reality; never did I imagine I would bypass high school and move into higher education.

Dare to dream the impossible dream. I am living proof it can and will happen. Don’t limit yourself and settle for too little. Many people say to themselves, It’s too hard! That’s a cop-out. If it wasn’t hard, it would not be worth it.

Now the fight- how did I do it? My family (especially my mother) began to discourage me with "You can’t leave a sick husband and little girl and be gone 3 days a week…besides, you never set a day in a high school classroom!"

God will make a way; ah yes He does and He did, but I had to put feet to my prayer and believe that I would find a way to do it. I told my husband, All I need is your support and belief that I can do it. He told me to go that first semester and he would push me all the way. Each morning, he put his arms around me and held me before I went on my way. At night, I held my little girl and dreamed my way through those years. I would not allow myself to think that I could fail. I would visualize myself as a teacher with my daughter and I having the same vacation, being with her every day. I knew I had missed much during the first four years of her life. I had no choice but to work and help support us. My incredible older daughter took up the slack and helped care for her little sister. She was fourteen-and-half years older. She was faithful to help and deserves applause for supporting us on our way to becoming who we are today.

The first semester I was on the Dean’s list. Though my family and I suffered hardships, we experienced the joy and excitement of a dream coming true. I enrolled in a music class and we were able to buy a piano. My young daughter would sit beside me when I practiced. She would listen as her daddy and I would play the old Bob Wills’ fiddle tunes like San Antonio Rose. While he played a wonderful country fiddle, we loved and lived as I had dreamed. In four years, I walked out of the University of North Texas with a Bachelor of Science degree with an endorsement to teach Kindergarten. My husband lived two more years and saw me teach almost a year before he went to be with the Lord. I taught over twenty years in elementary school. I completed many hours towards a Master’s Degree in elementary education.

My daughter had her struggles along the way but learned to dream also. She graduated from high school, got a Bachelor of Arts in piano pedagogy and a Master of Education in counseling. She also passed the state exams in special education, school counseling and Spanish. She worked four years as a teacher and became a school counselor. She is happily married and raising my two beautiful granddaughters.

Do dreams come true? Bet your life on it! Dare to dream. It can come true.

Free Affirmations To Incorporate Into Your Daily Practice of Self-Improvement

Many people have a casual attitude toward art and I was no exception. I was born in 1948 and raised in the 50’s on a poor ranch in Texas. I hardly knew what a city was; much less anything about art or being an artist. In the 60’s, my parents divorced and we moved to a tiny Texas town which boasted of one grocery store, a gas station and a High School with a class of ten students total.

Art was never even a passing thought as I continued my walk in life; getting married, having children, working, getting divorced twice and all that goes with the struggle to survive more obstacles than I will take time to discuss during this writing. Dreams did not find a place in my thoughts very often in those days and if I did allow a dream to flicker across my mind; I would not dwell on it for very long.

In the year of 1989, I was finally beginning to realize that life might have something more to offer. The man of my dreams, my third husband Ray, had asked me to retire six months earlier and I somehow began watching an oil painting show on TV, The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. I was fascinated. It was not very long before I really wanted to try and paint along with this man on TV.

Ray was excited I was interested in painting and he encouraged me to the highest degree. He began video taping art programs. One weekend, he took me shopping for paints, brushes, canvas and any items I would need to paint. Our apartment was very small and we set everything up on the dining room table so I could paint with the video. My first finished painting was a landscape. Everyone praised my work and encouraged me to continue. Painting became my absolute passion in life. I would paint from early in the morning until my husband would get home from work. A dream was birthed in the depth of my soul.

A few months later we started looking to buy a four bedroom house. We had prayed and ask God to lead, direct and guide us to just the right home to purchase. The one we found and really loved had brand new lush, thick carpet in all the rooms except one small bedroom in the back corner. This room had old, stained carpet and needed repairs. I knew God had chosen this room to become my very own and when the renovations were complete, it was the perfect “Art Studio.” We began buying art “how-to” books, videos and all the supplies I would possibly need. I painted constantly; almost day and night. I would often finish two paintings per day!

About a year later we began attending a little church in our neighborhood. We became friends with the young Pastor and his family. When they found out that I was an artist, they asked me to teach their sons how to paint. They had two adorable little boys that were home schooled and it was not long before I began teaching the boys to paint once per week in my studio. I believed that God had given me the “gift” of painting so I did not charge any money for the art lessons and we provided all the supplies needed except the canvas for the lessons. I used a verse from the Bible that says, “ Freely I have received, and freely I give” (Matt. 10:8, NIV). The next five and one-half years were filled with students from ages 6 to 70 coming in and out of my Studio twice per week and learning how to paint. At one time, I had 18 students per week.

This was a great time of learning and growing for me as an Artist. There was an unending wealth of artistic knowledge to absorb. I was like a sponge and wanted to learn more. After I stopped teaching Art, my interest moved from painting landscapes toward painting people. This was very foreign to me because I had never learned how to draw very much. Ray figured out there were lots of different ways to place a picture onto canvas without drawing so we bought a projector. This method worked very well for several years and was later replaced by enlarging items on the computer. I would trace the picture onto a canvas using graphite paper. During these years, I sold paintings, accepted commissions for specific works and did plein aire paintings in public occasionally (“plein air” painters work outside at a particular location capturing the light effects that occur in nature.)

The majority of my paintings were given to family members and just about anyone that wanted them. Many times, I would get very frustrated with a painting and throw it out to the curb for trash pick up. Ray would retrieve some of them and hide them in the attic. Many times, after months had gone by, he would bring a painting down and I would wonder why I had thrown it away! A neighbor invited me into her home one day and sheepishly admitted she had taken some of my paintings from our trash and placed them all over her walls.

My husband, Ray, had also developed a great interest in learning to paint. We took a spring vacation near a beautiful, large lake in Texas and decided we would paint together for a week. After the first day of painting, I became very ill and thought it was a stomach virus or something I had eaten. In fact, I had been having stomach problems for a few weeks prior. When we arrived back home, we decided to clean the Studio really well and bought a powerful air refresher device for the room because my husband had noticed that almost every time I painted, I became very ill at my stomach. After some research, we realized I had developed a strong allergy to oil paints and turpentine! We got rid of any and all oil based products in the Studio and started over using a water based acrylic paint It was quite expensive.

Learning to paint with acrylics presented a huge challenge as they dry quickly in a matter of seconds and are near impossible to blend in comparison to oil paints, which take several days to dry completely and blending is no problem at all. Lots of new videos were studied and I continued to paint every day; determined to learn the new medium. One week-end, I decided to paint a 24x36 inch canvas and chose a landscape composition with an old Chapel high up in the mountains. I was painting as fast as I possibly could before the acrylic dried and Ray laughingly said I was painting with both hands! When that experience was complete, I knew I could paint anything I wanted with acrylics. The Old Master painters from the 16th through 18th centuries are fascinating and I learned as much as possible about their lives. My favorites are John William Waterhouse, Renoir, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Sir Frank Dicksee, Pierre Auguste Cot and far too many others to name.

Thus began my love affair with these exceptional, talented, brilliant and extraordinary master artists who simply referred to themselves as “painters”. I began re-creating my own rendition of their beautiful compositions to hang on the walls of our home. The largest size canvases I have painted are two 36x48 inch. We found a fabulous, wholesale company and bought the most exquisite and superb frames we could afford.

A few years later, we moved into a beautiful new home closer to our family. We renovated an extra bedroom into a Studio to comfortably accommodate our easels, chairs, storage cabinet, tables and all our art supplies. Eventually, we joined a local Art Association that met once per month and we enjoyed making new friendships with other artists. We exhibited in art shows, banks and various other places during our tenor with the group.November of 2005, I became President of my own Art Association, which was formed with the help of some very close and dear artist friends. We were a diverse group of lively, creative and energetic artists that met once per month in a local Chamber of Commerce. Our meetings were fun, boisterous and informative. We always encouraged one another to keep painting no matter what! We exhibited paintings in different businesses on a continual basis and our artwork remains displayed at the city Library to this day.The Association was disbanded in December 2008. Many life long friendships were developed during this time in my life and I will forever be grateful for this special experience.

Over these years of painting, there are many lessons I have and am continuing to learn about the importance of reaching toward one’s dreams knowing the Master Creator, God, has shared some of His very own abilities to create beautiful works of art within my existence on this earth. Each time I complete an outstanding and exceptional painting, I feel like I have just awakened a place deep within my soul to discover a river of abundant, overflowing life filled with delight.

As a startling chill descended upon my home, I began making preparations for the first fire of the winter season. Rummaging through the newspaper pile that had been collected for just such an occasion, my plan to was to start a fire quickly. I became distracted however by the print and began glancing over the many stories, ads and highlights. I found and skimmed one about a man who recovered from lung cancer using phytoplankton and thought "Oh, I should cut this out and read it later." I grabbed some scissors and quickly finished that job and then determined to resist further distractions and proceed with crumpling up the papers, placing them underneath the firewood.

But just as I was about to do that I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at a picture of someone I recognized, or ALMOST recognized. I read the name. I KNOW this name I thought. It mentioned Fort Worth. I used to LIVE in Fort Worth.

I stared a moment longer and was taken back to a baby shower that I was given almost 9 years ago. I remembered a young girl, eighteen years of age at the most, whose face was that of a beautiful Latin angel and whose quiet presence, stylish clothing and amazingly fashionable eye wear struck and impressed me.

There was only one problem in my mind. Shelly, as her family called her, was overweight and probably since I had never been happy with my own weight, I thought to myself, "Oh how sad it is to see such a beautiful girl who is already overweight at such a young age." I feared that her unusual loveliness would never be seen, remaining forever hidden behind the intricate, multi-layered identity of "fat".

My thoughts returned to the photograph upon which I gazed in awe; a slender young woman with the face that I could only describe as that of a beautiful Latin angel.

The newspaper article gave her name and began, ".... of Fort Worth was crowned the winner of The Biggest Loser, NBC's weight-loss reality show, on Tuesday..... (she) 26, snagged the $250,000 prize and will star in a milk mustache ad. She lost 110 pounds, 45 percent of her body weight, to weigh in at 132."

My eyes filled up with tears of joy for her and her family. I thought about Shelly's background: a broken home with seemingly endless personal struggles; her once broken relationship with her mom (my sweet close friend and former housemate), and also how I had perceived her as having a lack of dating or social relationships expected for a young woman of her age.

But here she was smiling at me from the newspaper, looking as gorgeous as I knew she would without that excess baggage. I excitedly "googled" her name and found an article which gave this quote from her interview....

"Staying in the mental capacity of saying 'You're strong enough and you're worth it' is a lot harder than even doing the physical workout..."

I pondered her words. I felt grateful and happy for her and rather profoundly I realized that my friend's daughter has learned something invaluable, perhaps even more so than just how to lose weight.

She has learned that great things really do begin with sometimes seemingly impossible dreams, and that with persistence, determination and an eye-on-the-prize faith, we really can have what we expect and affirm for ourselves.

Yes, with a bright future that looks promisingly full, Shelly is slender and gorgeous NOW.

But I bet she would say in retrospect, that her life really changed that moment she imagined herself thin and successful. The moment she decided to believe in and follow her dreams....

The Biggest Loser

Shelly's Mom talks about her time on Biggest Loser Families

During a career change in my early thirties, I realized I needed to learn Spanish in order to work with Spanish-speaking people. I studied with software and tapes that friends had let me borrow. I bought a few books. My progress was O.K. but I wasn’t speaking Spanish and I certainly was not understanding those speaking Spanish.

Then one day it occurred to me, “What I really need is a friend who doesn’t speak English so that I can learn to actually communicate.” But I didn’t know any Spanish-speaking people who didn’t speak English at the time. I encountered them at the store and so forth but either I didn’t meet them in a social context or they spoke English which I knew would never work because we would invariably end up speaking English.

So I prayed and asked for someone to come into my life that was Spanish-speaking only. I purposefully tried to believe it would be possible somehow and feel expectant for an answered prayer.

One day I noticed two women moving up on the third floor. I heard them speaking Spanish. But I thought it might be because they didn’t have any English-speaking friends with them. Later I noticed that they never spoke English.They were about my age, looked friendly and so eventually I got up the nerve to say “Hola.” There are no words to describe how nervous I was and yet the barrier was broken and a relationship began.

To make a long story short, I eventually became roommates and shared an apartment with those Spanish-speaking neighbors for several years. After they moved back to Mexico, I went to visit them several times. Can you imagine how much that experience improved my Spanish? In fact, it changed my life forever.

I eventually was hired to teach bilingual 3rd grade, passed the teacher's state exam in Spanish and taught high school Spanish I and II. Studying Spanish is a hobby and passion of mine to this day! I've thoroughly enjoyed my experiences and relationships with people from places like Mexico, Guatemala and Puerto Rico, to name a few.

I've learned that a dream can be anything you desire to have or achieve. In addition to attaining money, fame or success, it is also experiencing a rich, fulfilling life in areas of the heart and home.

Here is a link to the language program I studied that was so helpful!

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