Tag: roads

The God Void Part II

Jennifred Jones

This void will be filled…by something!

You will, we will seek to fill it. Holes are meant to be filled. We don’t like holes in things.

Roads get potholes. Woodwork has holes. Clothing gets holes. Even our yard gets holes from groundhogs and rodents. These all have to be filled somehow.

There are many things people use in an attempt to fill their ‘God-hole’. New stuff, activities, church, totem poles, meditation, the universe, spiritism, crystals, or something they have made themselves.

None of these things are made of the same material as you are. These artificial filler materials we try to use will pop loose and fail in the long run. The hole will still be there. God wants to fill the hole with worthy sturdy long lasting material. He wants to fill it with Himself. I know it sounds crazy. We can’t understand it, but when this hole is filled, you’ll never feel the same again.

There will be scars around the edges where the hole once was, but you’ve been made whole and stronger actually than you were before. You won’t have to seek filler materials for the hole you once had. Because you are whole.

The Driving Game

Jennifred Jones

Driving has become a contest…us …against other drivers.  It’s an ugly contest.

We’re driving to town and enter the 4-lane area and immediately have to get around the person in front, speeding up and cutting them off, so they understand the imposition they have been by their thoughtless slow driving (probably they were doing the speed limit).

We are approaching an exit or lane merge and pull into that lane and then forbid anyone else from ‘cutting’ in front of us. ‘Don’t even think about it, I was here first; you’re on your own buddy! I had to wait my turn and I’m going to make sure you wait yours.’

The light is yellow, on the verge of red and we speed up to make the turn, or just flat out run the red light…who cares? ‘I waited long enough; I deserve to get through this light even if you have to wait.’

‘How dare you pull out in front of me (even though I was a quarter of a mile back and you had plenty of time)…just for that I’m going to ride on your tail and stay there to teach you a lesson!’

This is horrible! Yet we encounter these drivers each day. Some of them are us, and some of them are the others.

Accidents, pile-ups, and debris all along the way, because somebody wasn’t thinking.

What if we looked at the whole network of drivers and cars on the roads a different way? What if we all saw ourselves as members of a team with the goal to help each one get to where they’re going?

Currently  it’s high football tide and every person on the team is pulling together with a single directive of helping each player do their best, shielding them when necessary, clearing the way, letting them through.

What if we stopped seeing other drivers as a potential threat to our maneuverability?

What if…we saw other drivers as people going to work (yes, some  should have left a few minutes earlier)… saw them as a fellow parent trying to take the kids to school or the daycare… saw them as a concerned relative rushing to the hospital… saw them as someone who just left after a family fued.

What if we saw them as ‘us’ and decided to help them get to their destination.

So we… decide to let them go in front of us…decide to pull back so they can make the turn… decide to smile and give them some distance…. decide to do everything we can as a good courteous driver so they can reach their destination safely.

What if we ‘befriended’ fellow drivers causing them to befriend their fellow drivers- continually paying it forward until instead of a 50 car pile-up, we have an avalanche of goodwill on display in our roadways.

What if…?

Could it start with me?

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Not My Responsibility

Jennifred Jones

The stretch of highway between home and work is 5 miles of treacherous roadway. ..curves with steep embankments, abrupt drop-offs just inches away from the white line, caved in culverts under the roadway making unsafe, uneven road conditions. Top this with a little ice and snow and one of the many accidents/fatalities is ready to occur, and many have. This road intersects with another state road at a yellow flasher.

Well that all sounds terrible, why doesn’t somebody do something about it???

I am that somebody.  You are that somebody.

One of the yellow flasher lights was out for months, I was sure it would be fixed as other highway trucks were driving through when I’d go by. Finally I emailed the highway department a thoughtful note that perhaps they didn’t realize the bulb was out. Within 3 days it was fixed and I had a nice response back from them.

Several years back there was a lingering pothole, at a corner in town, growing larger every day during the winter and it would damage your car if you fell into it. I emailed thethe street department and that very day they sent someone to fill it. I thanked them for it.

There are many things that seem to slip through the cracks unnoticed that could be changed for the better if someone would speak up. I’m not referring to complaining about any little thing I disagree with, but for normal everyday things we can begin to show our care for others by speaking up to obtain the help needed.

This is my community and I want to help improve it. I wrote in a previous blog about just picking up the trash around your neighborhood and workplace for a real morale booster.

I believe we allow ourselves to be overcome in our thoughts to do good by thoughts of, ‘mind your own business’, ‘it’s not your concern’, ‘it’s not my responsibility’, ‘somebody else will do something, ‘they’ll think I’m sticking my nose in someone else’s affairs’. So we shrink back.

Yet we love reading stories about others who stepped up and caused a miracle, preventing someone else heartache, merely because they spoke up to a need they noticed.

Let’s silence those voices and begin to change the areas in our surrounds by contacting the necessary authorities in a respectful manner. Let’s not shrug off what we can do something about and then complain because no one has done anything.

I am contacting my highway department about my road today.

I will get back with you…

How about your hometown?