Tag: rain

Can a Storm Strengthen Me?

Jennifred Jones

Some don’t like storms. The fear of damage, destruction and loss. Even the wind blowing can cause a panic.

Yet there is a good side to storms. The strong winds are a natural form of pruning – blowing off dead and weak branches…blowing down leaves in the fall to mulch the corners of the garden and woods. The wind actually causes roots and branches to grow stronger as they stand up to resist the wind’s power.

Our bodies grow stronger – bones and muscles – as we work and use them. Kneading bread will really strengthen your core. Washing windows and mopping floors stretches and lubricates all kinds of our muscles. Even thinking through hard problems calls upon hidden reserves of our mind looking for solutions. We are made to weather storms and come out stronger through them.

One lightning bolt adds natural nitrogen fertilizer to acres of land with a single strike. That’s why everything is greener after a good thunderstorm.

Storms show us loose shingles that blew off the roof – possible leak this winter. The wind helps us see where to plug up drafty windows and doors, or where the ground is low around the foundation and water pools into the basement, and then we find out the sump pump stopped working.

Personally, when storms caused by another’s comment or action try to rock our boat, we can see the area we need to shore up better so we’re not weak and touchy there. We can discover and correct character flaws when those windy gales blow on us. Yes, sometimes these storms appear suddenly out of nowhere. But we can prepare and use the storm to strengthen us and see what we’re made of.

Has the wind been blowing hard in some direction in your life you need to strengthen? I know it has in mine.

Let’s grow stronger together.

A Citizen’s Response -ability

Jennifred Jones

I am a citizen of the United States of America. I was born here. I am granted full rights and responsibilities being an American citizen according to the US constitution.

We are governed by law through elected officials who are to have our best interests at heart, because they are one of us.

This places responsibility upon me to be watchful of my country, to live by its principles and to help my officials and representatives follow what we elected them for. We pay our taxes to have this done, and we want to make sure our hard-earned money is going to a profitable return.

I realize this comment may open a big can of worms, and I’m not going fishing!

Let me give a local example fresh from today. We’ve had multiple inches of rain where I live. One of the central parking lot drains at a nearby apartment complex doesn’t drain right. Many times water stands in the lot and comes halfway up car’s tires when they drive through. The mailbox unit was engulfed so the mailman didn’t stop -he couldn’t get to the boxes for all the water. It’s been over 6 hours and water is still there. Residents have literally waded in ankle deep water to reach their cars.

I felt it my responsibility to call the city and inquire about the drain since this has been repetitive. After several calls I reached the right person. They were unaware of the situation. The helpful official said he’d check out whose responsibility it was – the city or the apartment complex. I told him I felt bad for the residents living there, (including a man with a limp who had to walk all the way around the big ‘puddle’ to get to his car.) There was no other interest of my own…just noticing other’s wading through their difficulty.

How simple it was for me to call. Yes, it took time and effort, but I thought this is why we pay taxes – to have things run smoothly for the citizenry. I spoke with the city official as person to person, citizen to citizen – both working towards a common good.

What if every time something needed attention, we citizens did our responsible part and contacted whoever we needed to and didn’t think, ‘someone else will take care of it’. We are the someone else and we need to take care of it. How will our officials know what we need if we don’t tell them? This is how America works and how we keep a big country small and approachable.

I’m glad we live here and can help make things better!

What do you think?

Your Mind – a Reservoir

Jennifred Jones

Reservoirs and floodgates. Store it up and let it out!

Our wonderful mind is like a reservoir that will store up whatever we send its way. All the good ideas and plans and thoughts, experiences, movies, songs, places we’ve been, books we’ve read…all in there!

I think that’s partly why so many books have been written. People have so much in their reservoir they have to get it out and share it with others. Essentially, they’re opening the floodgate of their mind and letting the water flow.

What we store in our reservoir is what will flow out. Thinking now about dams…debris tends to float on the top, it doesn’t go down into the turbines. That’s handy because the debris can be skimmed off and discarded. Other pollutants get mixed in with the water and won’t get filtered out but will come out when the floodgates are opened. That’s why some content is good, and some not so good.

Fortunately, there are water purifiers to help us filter out the pollutants. We can install these upstream before the water enters our reservoir to keep the waters clean and clear. Sunlight is another natural purifier which can kill just about any bad thing with long enough exposure. If the waters are very polluted and stagnant, a good hard rain and some flooding will clear everything out for us…maybe a little lightning and thunder so we can see and hear better what’s been getting into our water.

The object of the reservoir is to retain and release pure waters to help not only us and ours but others further downstream.

Do today:

  • Rake off debris
  • Check water filters upstream