I believe with all my heart and soul in the universal law of cause and effect. Some call it karma, you reap what you sow, what goes around comes around, or consequences or every action has an equal and opposite reaction, or many other similar statements. Whatever you chose to call it, it is true.

How many times have you said or done something and it later came back to you in one way or another, It may have been something good coming back, if what you said or did was good, or it may have had bad consequences if what you said or did was not good.

I remember when a gal I worked with in a factory told me about my niece's son hitting her daughter in the mouth at school. She said it broke one of her daughter's teeth and cost my co-worker quite a bit to have it extracted. I told the gal I was sorry my niece's son behaved so badly, but I figured they would work it out. I intended to forget about it myself.

Later that night after I got home from work one of my girlfriends came by and we were gabbing about different things. I don't quite know how it came up, but I wound up telling her about my niece's son and what he had done at school. I told my friend to keep it to herself, and of course, she said she would. That was a big mistake on my part.

About two days later I went to work and was met by a very angry co-worker, the gal who told me about her daughter being hit by my niece's son. She said my niece had called her at home and raised holy hell for telling such stories about her son. My niece then went to the school to find out if the story was true. The school elected to stay out of the battle and left the burden of proof to my co-worker. The poor woman had never intended to press the issue about her daughter; she was just going to let it go. She was simply telling me about the incident.

Apparently, my (trusted friend) couldn't wait to tell my niece the sordid story going around about my niece's son. Still, it was one hundred percent my fault for repeating a confidence told to me.

Lesson learned to keep my big mouth shut, especially when someone confides something very personal to you. I had two people who were very angry at me because I opened my big mouth; the law of cause and effect in action.

Karma can also work the other way around and bring you good when you least expect it.

As kids, we all went swimming at a lake that was about a quarter of a mile from our house. While swimming there one day, I found a beautiful diamond ring in the sand. It was absolutely gorgeous and I wanted to keep it so bad I could taste it. I stuck it in my pants pocket and figured I just wouldn't tell anyone about the ring.

Later that night I was trying to sleep but thinking of that ring was burning a hole in my mind. I finally got out of bed and padded downstairs with the ring in my hand. I woke my mother up and showed her the ring. Of course mother said we had to find the person who had lost the ring and return it to them. I knew she was right, but I hated to give the ring up.

Mom placed an ad in the paper saying we had found the ring. It wasn't but a couple of days later that a lady answered our ad and said she would be right out to our house.

When the lady who owned the ring came to get it she burst into tears at the sight of the ring. She explained that the ring was a family heirloom and had belonged to her mother and grandmother before her. It was passed on to each generation when the oldest daughter married. She thought she would never see the ring again. She thanked me over and over again and insisted that I accept twenty dollars for being such a good honest little girl.

Twenty dollars was a lot of money back in those days, but the great feeling I had for doing the right thing was priceless. A perfect example of the good side of cause and effect; do good and it will return to you in the most unexpected ways.