Hopeless and Helpless

Hope and help.

We may feel hopeless, but we are not helpless. We may feel helpless, but we are not hopeless.

Hope will bring us help, and help will give us hope.

There will always be a pathway of hope with a glimmer of light no matter how dark it seems.

We were made creatures of hope…to believe and hope for something better, to long for better times, to think of how to improve our situations.

This is the crux of personal freedom. We may improve our lives, families, jobs, homes and communities. No one can hold us back from thinking how to and planning a better future. It is the desire in each of us.

We have civil laws and regulations to help keep things in check so our thoughts and plans don’t infringe on others’ lives harmfully, but even they can be modified if need be. Our free world was designed to cause people to want to invent, grow, prosper, improve, help, enlarge, enrich, expand. There is nothing wrong with these things! We would still be in the dark, literally, if free minds were not allowed to think, help and design!

Do not despise your own thoughts because you think they don’t measure up to another’s, or to what you think others will think of them. The help you need in your situation begins with your hopeful thinking.

So what if your idea is ‘only’ to make a better dog food…planned by you to keep beloved pets strong and healthy! That’s a wonderful, caring idea people would love! Who cares that it costs more to buy? Good food means less vet bills for the pet parent.

You like working with clay but don’t think you’re good enough or your finished item is crooked. Do you want to know how many crooked, cast-off pieces of pottery are in my home? I love to collect those cast-a-ways and have them all over – inside and outside 🙂

As you read this today, begin to take hope and look for help if you need it. Move forward and things will begin to fall into place.

One Leaf

A tree needs more than one leaf.

“There’s no point in me doing that! Someone else is already doing it.”

“There’s no point in me making that someone else has already made it.”

“There’s no point in me saying that, writing that…someone else has already done it.”

Why is my leaf needed when there already is another leaf !?!

How many of us like to sit under a tree with only one leaf on a hot summer day? What if it had one great big leaf? Would that be better?

Every leaf is needed, no matter what its size.

The more leaves, the more fresh oxygen is produced, the more transpiration of moisture to keep more people cool.

What if there was only one gas station per city, or one grocery store per city or one coffee shop per city, one park…..They would be crowded and people couldn’t comfortably get in to get what they need…probably wouldn’t have the selection they wanted either.

Don’t despise your leaf!

Shine it up, hang it up and get busy providing what only your leaf can do!!

Everybody’s leaf is needed!!!

Mass Production

Today, looking at all the products in Target, I was thinking how quickly an item can be duplicated and produced once the pattern is made. Many, many, many of the same items can be turned out in a short amount of time with little effort.  So much of our world applies the mass production to its wooden spoons, its canned goods, its cars, its clothing, food, even our work and our jobs.

The purpose behind this is more goods produced in less time, fewer facilities needed to make the product, even less materials can be used once the process gets down to a science, and last but not least, fewer people are needed to make these goods. All this can make a person feel like a mere cog in the wheel, just part of the cycle of production, not important, perhaps even replaceable and unneeded. This can really begin to eat at you if you let it.

The good news is God, the creator of everything, did not mass produce anything! He made, created, a lot out of nothing, but none of it is mass produced. You can rest assured you are not a cog in the wheel to God. You were not mass produced, turned off an assembly line… maybe up to spec and maybe not. No, God made you and said, “It is good!” Each of us has His stamp on us. We are all unique, each has certain traits, characteristics, talents, and skills; although perhaps similar to another’s they are different and God wants to use them in a different way. Don’t despise your differences when you try to compare yourself with others. Know that God made you just the way He intended. Now all we have to do is grow and develop and allow Him to bring to maturity what He started.

He who began a good work in you will finish it!