What's in a name?

What's in a name?
Names can identify us, represent us and our beliefs, tell our history and even our future.  Sometimes we can be summed up by our names.   Some names seem to be self-fulfilling prophecies.  A child named Bubba does not call to mind a tall, reedy, geeky kid nor does the name Poindexter bring to mind a squat, compact foot ball player. Just think of the names of certain characters and the traits associated with them: Ebenezer Scrooge, Jay Gatsby, Sherlock Holmes, Carrie Bradshaw.

Because association of names and what a person, place, object is called is important, this blog will be called Well of Encouragement and can be found under the link:  Well of Encouragement. Please join me there as we continue our journey together.  VR

Working with what we have

This past summer, I, along with some other family members, visited my ninety-seven-year-old great-aunt.  Eunice lives independently, in a small garden apartment.  She is truly an inspiration in her attitude, her pluckiness and  verve in living. 

For many years in post retirement, Eunice volunteered at the hospital where she had been employed.  She would visit patients, distributing magazines, mail, and books.  Faithfully every week even when her own infirmities would bother her, she would tend to her hospital charges.  Her last volunteering occurred in the last 2 years.  She had to stop due to compression fractures in her spine, which make it extremely difficult and painful to walk.

As that volunteer door closed, she embarked in another volunteer opportunity- She calls the “shut-ins” from her church, those individuals who no longer can routinely get out of their homes for visits, church, shopping, etc.   She sits in her chair with the phone beside her and calls those who need a friendly voice or a listening ear. She keeps detailed charts regarding whom she calls and their individual needs.  As she was telling us about her new venture, she stopped, paused and said, "You know, it just occurred to me that most of the people I am calling are in their sixties and seventies!" 

She could just as easily stop her volunteering.  If anyone, she has certainly earned it. At her age and physical ailments, she could have rested on her laurels.  Yet she has chosen to concentrate on what she can do rather what she cannot.

Do I do that?  When I am faced with an unpleasant situation or at least some type of change in my life, do I embrace that change or do I want to curl up in my own room and throw myself a pity party?  

Whenever I am tempted to rail against my "lot in life" I need to be reminded of Eunice.  No matter what I am given, I have the choice to either work with it, or not.  May I have the strength to carry on in such a dignified and graceful manner. 

First Things First

On my desk, I have 3 fairly large beach stones.  They are all various shades of grey: one slightly darker than the others, one is a very light grey and the other almost white with speckles of grey.  These stones were collected on one of our family vacations to Cape Cod.  When I see and touch them I can almost taste the salt spray, feel the warm sunshine on my skin and smell the sea air mingled with white pine.

The stones are a reminder of something I heard in a speech a long time ago.  The speaker attributed this analogy to the late  Steve Covey.  Basically, the idea is this-  if you had a mason jar and a pile of large stones, smaller stones, pebbles, sand and water in what order would you fill the jar so that all the material would fit?  Would you put in the water first, add the sand, the pebbles, smaller stones and then the larger stones last?  

The only way that all of it would fit is if you first put in the big stones and then the next smaller size until you added all the solid material and then poured the water in on top.  The point being that one needs to do what is important first and then the rest will follow.

The 3 stones on my desk are a reminder of what is important to me: faith, family and friends. It is a daily review of priorities in my life and a reminder to fill it with "first things first". Everyday I can get pulled in so many directions and asked to do so many things- work, co-workers, family, extended family, church, neighbors, social engagements, school, etc.  Even seemingly good things can become burdensome when I have no boundaries or limits.   When I try to fit everything in I  can become overwhelmed and feel that nothing fits.  I feel frustrated that those things that I want to do get pushed out of the way by other things. 

I would encourage each one of you to decide what is important in your life.  Is it family, career, health, travel, friends, etc?  Write down all the things that are important to you and really spend time mulling over that list.  If it would be helpful, number them from #1-#whatever.  Try and make a priority to daily fill your life with those things that are meaningful to you.  During different seasons of our lives, the big stones might shift and change and we may find that which was important in one season no longer has the high priority.   That is okay.  Just recognize that every day we should try and do the "first things first".

Welcome

Welcome! Thanks for finding my blog. I would like to think of this as a little coffee break in our day. We have gathered to share ideas and to encourage one another. 

My hope is that this blog would encourage you to live your life in the best possible way- to its fullest. Everyone has the potential to be whole and well as we were created to be. 


There is a scene in the movie, City Slickers, where Billy Crystal's character Mitch laments, "You ever reach a point in your life where you say to yourself: This is best I'm ever gonna look, the best I'm ever gonna feel, the best I'm ever gonna do...and it ain't that great?"


If you are like me, you have probably thought this at some point in the past. I would encourage you to stop thinking like that- you can have the life that you want. For the majority of people who are reading this, I would surmise that we do have some options and choices in our lives.  It is just that we sometimes get stuck in our pattern of thinking.  


For today, tune out that inner negative voice that says that "it ain't that great".
Instead, I leave you with another line from a movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," Everything will be all right in the end... if it's not all right then it's not the end."  
          It is not the end, we are just at the beginning of our journey.