Inspiration

Rules don’t apply–part 1

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

I found a conversation I wrote in a story of mine yesterday that I thought would make a good blog post. It takes place between a main character and a bit of an antagonist character. It was a debate about how to solve a certain problem that had come up. The main character finally gets worked up enough to utter an impassioned speech (I edited this to make it more clear.):

“Yes, love. I’ve found that nothing else matters. Love makes it worth it to go through the other stuff…and that’s why I have to believe in Goodness too. Good things are done out of love, and  they make love grow. Freedom allows love. Evil just wants to kill it. Or twist it.”

“People can do just fine without all that sappy stuff, and what does it help? You think love will fix this mess?”

“Yes! and if it can’t, what can? Work? Work for what? Rules? What good are rule when they have no reason to exist save for control. Why do we get up every morning if not for love of something? And I don’t mean sappy stuff. I mean the real, true, loyal, kind sort of love. That’s what motivates me. Because I’ve been given it. And I stand by God because He gives it. I see no other way and no other Hope but to hope in Him. And that’s my say.”

This was a fan fiction piece, and the world it’s based off is one where Good and Evil are arbitrary things, all depending on your background only, not your personality. Which is an idea present in the real world, but this world takes it to the degree of craziness.

That’s why the character is railing against rules. I’ve been reading about Thomas Jefferson, and one thing that sticks out about his politics is how he was concerned for the common good. It’s actually in the Preamble to the constitution that it is meant to “promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity (descendants.)” The Constitution is a classic example of men trying to make rules that would benefit everyone. those rules are made out of love for their countrymen. These rules are fine.

But rules can also be made out of fear and frustration. As I’m sure you know from your own experience. Sometimes rules are just made out of stupidity. People believe something is right, but they haven’t thought it through, and they use their power to enforce the idea.

Of course that speech isn’t really about rules. It could easily be made in favor of them, if rules were on the side of love. That’s really the greater point.

you see, it puzzles people that two opposite actions can both be the right thing to do in different circumstances. I think that’s where the idea that right and wrong are arbitrary comes in for a lot of us. And it’s true if you ever day any one action is evil, someone will find a case proving otherwise.

I didn’t always understand how you can tell what the right thing to do is if this is the case. how can you ever be sure?

the answer was given to me, as it often is, through a book. “The hiding Place.” Which I’ve mentioned before on this blog. In that book Corrie and her family have an argument about whether it was right to lie about what they were doing in order to keep people safe and alive. Corrie’s sister, Nollie, argues that truth is always the best choice. That the bible makes it clear never to lie. Corrie argues that to preserve their radio she had to lie. (and later she lies while under interrogation.)The thing is, while the radio may be a small thing, no one would deny that lying to save lives was the right thing to do. In fact, it  would be weak not to.

But the strange thing is that the end result of Nollie telling the truth and Corrie hiding it was the same. Both times the person or people they had wanted to help were safe in the end. And the answer seems to be provided in this one line that their father said to calm Corrie down. “I am sure, whatever you said Corrie, was out of love.”

Huh? What does that even mean?

Well, the Bible says that to a Christian all things are permissible but not all things are helpful. It says not to use grace as a license for sin. It also says whatever is not of faith is sin. What does all this have to do with my point? I’ll tell you.

God never says lying is good. In fact, He forbids it. But even in the Bible there are examples of people lying and not being condemned for it. but it was always to protect the lives of an innocent person, or to get justice in some other way, when total honesty would not serve. God still never says it is good, but we have no record of Him punishing the person for it. Often lying still has its own consequences, and so do other sins that might be committed in the same instance. It seems to matter more why someone does something, and not what it is they do.

This is not always the case. But Corrie and Nollie both did what they did out of their respective beliefs that is was the ight thing, or more right, than the alternative. Sometimes the Right thing can be a personal choice. But only if it’s in line with the Truth.

I mean that it is in Love. I can get a little too obsessed with having “All justice” as Portia put it. (The Merchant of Venice.) But just like for Shylock, in real life having all justice means having more than you desired. If you live by Love on the other hand, you will get as much justice as you need, but you will also render mercy.

Justice is important to me, but Mercy is even more important. I’ll go more into this in the next part, but I’m stopping this here.

–Natasha.cropped-welcome-scan.jpg

The lost Virtue

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

I got busy over the weekend and didn’t find time to post, but today I have.

SO, I’ll be working on a lot of writing projects over the next few months and I figure the subject matter is bound to overlap. One thing I’ll be thinking of this month is Virtue.

That word is very rarely used anymore, and I think I ought to know what it actually means. Let’s see what the dictionary says.

  1. Moral excellence; goodness; righteousness.
  2. Conformity of one’s life and conduct to moral and ethical principles.
  3. Chastity; virginity.
  4.  A particular moral excellence
  5. A good or admirable quality or property
  6. Effective force; power or potency  (all this from dictionary.com, love that website)

As you can see virtue is a noun and kind of a verb and adjective as well. It is a characteristic. No #6 may be a bit confusing, but it means virtue as the strength of something. It is used that way because virtue was once seen as the strength of one’s character.

Now that we’ve defined it, let’s look at it. Why should I care about virtue? How does this things affect me? Is it present in our culture. Here’s a big one: how can I possibly make virtue seem relevant to people who don’t even use the word often. If at all. Seriously, when was the last time you thought about it? All obstacles I must overcome to write anything worth reading on this subject.

It’s unusual to write a blog post this way, but that’s the point. Do you ever read blogs and think about how the author tries to catch your interest? Many bloggers don’t they just write whatever and don’t seem connected with their audience at all. That’s the virtue of their writing. (See what I did there.) Now this is not an attempt to get more readers on my own blog, but I do want them to know I think of them when I’m working on this material.

Of course Virtue has a huge place in my life, though I typically call it morality. My posts are geared to encourage people to virtue. I think about it a lot. I believe in the importance of it. And I almost daily feel the sting of a country that has thrown virtue out with excellence. It has embraced mediocrity, and it has shamed the wise and intelligent.

Case in point, I recently watched part of a movie that was based off “Pride and Prejudice.” No this was not the zombie version, don’t get me started on that. This was about a modern woman going back in time into the actual story. The movie quickly took the story, tore it to shreds, and said “screw you Austen fans.” It was the most blatant disrespect of an author I’ve seen. And of a story. They stopped at nothing, they sexualized, demoralized, vulgarized, and then changed the ending altogether.

The worst of it was the main character claimed to know and love the story, but she didn’t know a blooming thing about refinement. Or manners.

Virtue may be said to be the heart of something, and this movie missed the heart of the book so entirely I could hardly believe they read it. I think they just watched the BBC version and decided to learn absolutely nothing about good writing from it.

Jane Austen stands as a threat to cheap and sexualized romance stories, and those writers seem to have formed a committee to destroy her. And she is not the only one, what about the other good stories that are being changed? What about the historical figures whoa re being mocked? What about the books that are being censored from schools because the supposedly are racist? When is someone going to stand up and say “Enough!”

Well, even if you complain about it, people will quickly tell you you are just too picky. You are left wondering what happened to standards.

I’ll tell  you, it’s the loss of virtue. Less than a hundred years ago people began to reject age old morality, and to embrace a new kind that was in fact as old as the hills. Mainly this subsisted of sexual freedom (read: addiction.) And dispensing with things like manners and respect and tradition. To this day tradition is demonized by many sources. We’ve seen ups and downs since the roaring twenties, but we have yet to see a real restoration in our modern time.

There are people trying to restore standards. That’s one of the reasons for homeschooling. But we are still far outnumbered by the mediocre educators. Sorry if you happen to be in one of those schools. But I’m just telling it how it is, and believe me, I do know.

Virtue is something that must be cultivated, and that is why it was supposed to be incorporated into schooling. C. S. Lewis thought the purpose of education was to teach a student what he (or her) ought to feel about things. Not by brainwashing, but by teaching him to perceive value. But people began to say value didn’t exist, but being hypocrites (for they said that it was better to think that way, thereby ascribing value to their own philosophy,) all they really taught the children was to scorn everything that was not cold hard fact. Lewis called this “men without chests” and showed how such thinking would abolish mankind. It also abolishes virtue.

Without valuing things we cannot see, we cannot value virtue. This point was made in that show Girl Meets World, when Mr. Matthews pointed out that until you feel things, powerful things, you are not a full human being.

Until you feel, you cannot understand virtue. And that is why Apathy is plaguing our young people and our old people. There is a lack of virtue in the influences that surround us. Sadly, we have taught each other not to care. A vicious cycle.

But it is not too late. The first step is to realize the problem.

This is too long to elaborate further, so until next post–Natasha.

100_2639

Doves: Also a symbol of purity.

Not apologetics.

/ toseealife / 2 Comments

“Christianity is not a series of myths in the plural, but rather truth spelled with a capital “T.” Truth about total reality, not just about religious things. Biblical Christianity is Truth concerning total reality–and the intellectual holding of that total Truth and then living in the light of that Truth.”–Francis Schaeffer.

I found this quote in a book I’ve been reading. (I just finished it. Shooting for over 6o books this year.) I liked it because this is just what I think.

You know, I just read a comment section conversation on YouTube about religion being used as a reason to do anything. These random people I don’t know stated that it should never be used as the only reason to do something.

I guess if you’re coming at it from the point of view that no religion encompasses the Total True and Right way to live, that make sense. But I’m not going to be mean and say these people don’t have a point. A lot of religions have traditions that don’t make any sense.

I’ve heard a belief in Christianity defended on the grounds that it makes the most sense; and while I agree that, out of all religions, Christianity is the most sensible, I would not say all of it makes sense from a  rational, logical perspective.

There’s a reason people have for centuries thought we were a little out of our minds. Christianity requires a lot of faith in the unseen. I don’t just mean the invisible, I mean the unseen results. Often people can believe in an invisible God just fine, but they can’t believe in a God that lets the things happen that happen, and that seems to leave His followers in difficult or fatal positions.

Even C. S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian minds in the past hundred years, he himself admitted that there were things he could not grasp about God. He didn’t have to. he just had to have faith. Why would such a man of reason admit that God can be puzzling.IT seems crazy then to still believe in Him.

In one of Lewis’ books, Till We Have Faces, there is a character called the Fox, a Greek Philosopher. he spends most of the story trying to understand the Divine Nature by pure reason, he teaches the main character Orual to discount any other method of understanding, but in the end he sadly admits “I never wanted her to ask…why the Priest something from (his faith) that I never got from my sayings.” Admitting that there was something lacking in his “Pure reason.” And that is so, because reason without faith is not actually pure.

We were not made with just our minds to guide us, we have feelings too, and those feelings are often more right than our thoughts. Now, the reverse is also true. Many people never think at all, and run on emotion. But this post is not about that, I’ve laid all this out to make a bigger point:

When you accept that something is “The Truth.” You stop trying to reason with it. No more debate. No more second guessing. This is the hill you will die on. You may literally die too, but it doesn’t make a difference.

Jesus explained it like this, the Kingdom of Heaven. (Truth.) Is like a precious pearl, that when someone finds it in the marketplace he will go and sell everything he has and buy that one thing. Why? Because the Pearl was worth all the rest. We’d call that crazy, the Pearl won’t feed you; it won’t clothe you; it won’t warm you; unless you sell it, and then what was the point. Just to have it?What was that worth? What is mere beauty and rarity worth? Any number of old fables about greed and the vanity of owning precious things and losing everything else come to our minds. Why would Jesus of all people use such an outrageous analogy?

Because; it’s true.

Truth, when you find it, requires that you give up all the lies you subsisted on till now. You must give up even your life, or your family, in order to get that truth. Nothing can stand in your way, because it’s not cheap. When you have it, people wonder why you would sacrifice so much for something that seems to be just an idea. “Things only have value in you mind,” we say, “There’s no such things as inherent value.”

But that is simply wrong. Just like a Pearl is a natural treasure, Truth is naturally the most valuable thing we can have. Unlike the Pearl, it may not always be pretty. Like in the book I mentioned, where the god is an ugly stone. (It’s only a symbol.)

Until you can put practicality aside, you can never accept Christianity. Face it, human beings are not, at core, practical creatures. And that’s a good thing. Practicality only deals with our physical life.

Truth says that there is a point in doing things that make no sense. because  if yo do them, you’ll find a whole new layer of what makes sense. Just like Orual digs and digs to find the kind of reason that is compatible with faith, so must we all. If and when we succeed, we’ll look back on how we used to rationalize (as Alex and Brett Harris say “rational lies.”) and shake our heads at how blind we were.

So what if it doesn’t make sense always? It doesn’t have to. How could we finite beings ever understand all of the Divine Nature anyway? It doesn’t take a Christian to admit that, lot’s of people have.

Let me tell you, the wisest thing you can ever do is to stop trying to fit God into your reason, it’ll never happen. He won’t allow it. He wants your faith.

“Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Hebrews 11:6.

That’s all for now–Natasha.100_3137

Ladies and gents.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Ladies and gents, may I call this phrase to your attention?

The one I just used, yes.

I talked about what it is like to be a lady, and now it only seems fair to say a word about the term gentleman.

I explained what gentry were in my last post, but though we still use the term gentleman (often sarcastically) today, a lot of us haven’t heard the term “gentlewoman.” Though it was also called being a gentleman’s daughter if I understand correctly.

There’s a scene in that classic book Pride and Prejudice in which the heroine, Elisabeth and the aunt of Darcy, Lady Catherine De’Bourgh, are having an argument.

It is without a doubt  one of the best scenes in my opinion. And at one memorable moment, Lady Catherine, (not at all acting like her title) accuses Elisabeth of trying to quit the sphere she was brought up in. The translation of that is: Mr. Darcy is too good for her. By this time Elisabeth herself feels this is true, but angered by the Lady Catherine, she retorts that he is a gentleman and she is a gentleman’s daughter, thus far they are equal.

Let me pause there. A huge complaint about men doing the things that used to be called chivalry is that they think women can’t take care of themselves. That’s why gentlemen get such a bad rap. But here Elisabeth states the culturally held opinion of her time, that a gentleman and a  gentlewoman are equals.

And if you examine the story, you will find no indication otherwise. In that time, and between that class of people, there was a code of conduct. Followed by everyone. It didn’t matter whether you were male or female. If you were well bred you followed it and were expected to understand it. In one example, there was a rule that only two gentlemen could initiate an acquaintance with each other, under certain circumstances, such as one moving into an new neighborhood.Under any other circumstances, a polite person would never walk up and introduce themselves, a mutual acquaintance, (male or female, it didn’t matter,) would make the introductions. In this way friendship circles would grow bigger and bigger, but also could stay very small if the friends so wished.

I point this out because it is just one example of how their society worked, and one we no longer use so no one can possibly get offended over it.

It applied to both genders; and that’s the thing we don’t remember anymore, that courtesy is gender neutral.

I could make a list of the few gestures of chivalry that men still attempt to make, but it’s not necessary, we all know them. I just wonder why we’re so hard upon them.

Gentlemen have  a hard time now, because  a lot of the world hates the very idea of them. They mark a clear distinction between male and female, dare I say, roles in society.

I think also the stereotypical image of the man, who’s really a boy, wearing kid gloves and lace, turns off the modern mind; but I might point out not long ago it was acceptable for guys to wear sparkly vests and frizzy hair and that was cool. I’m sure there’s some weird things we still allow that the 18th century gentleman would have found to be ridiculous. this isn’t really about looks.

There’s another novel, “North and South,” by Elisabeth Gaskell, that deals with the idea of being a gentleman, among other things. We meet several men in that novel who are not gentleman by rank, but demonstrate some amount of chivalry that prove that in their hearts at least they are noble.

The mark of a gentleman is strength. And it’s odd that I say that, for traditionally gentry did not work or exercise a great deal unless they so chose. But it’s strength of mind.

What good breeding was all about, at least before priggish people got ahold of the term, was teaching children how to handle things like criticism, being insulted, being ignored, or just having someone be rude to them in general. It also taught them how to treat each other and themselves with respect. how to disapprove of people without dehumanizing them. How to disagree with someone without making a scene or resorting to violence. Of course, if he had to, a gentleman was allowed to defend someone with force, but if among other gentleman, as he was always supposed to be, it was assumed he would never have to.

On a lady’s part, she would also never resort to violence, because it was seen as a mark of weak self control, not of strength. If ever she was in need of defense, she was trusted to have enough gentleman about her at all times to be able to look out for her. This was not a mark of weakness. It was simply a lady’s duty to set an example of gentleness, and a gentleman’s duty to see that she was always free and unafraid to do so.

That’s why to be a fatherless, husbandless, and brother-less girl was so serious. It was a matter of honor.

That’s not to say there wasn’t sexism, there always is, but sexism is not a class thing. It’s the choice of men and women, and it’s a private choice.

Being a lady and a gentleman was actually the best defense against sexism, because it taught you from an early age to treat the opposite sex with deference, and to respect their own accomplishments.

It’s true, that sunk to some shallow proportions for shallow people. Like valuing a woman only for her talents and fine clothing instead of for her mind, and a man only for his style and talents in sports, or cards, or dancing.

But class did not create shallowness, shallow people will be shallow whatever class they are in, and as far as that goes, the gentry probably had the least dangerous way of handling it.

My conclusion about gentleman is that, like ladies, they are made what they are by their hearts. If the way they show it outwardly is different than it used to be, fine. But whatever way they show it ought to be appreciated, not scorned.

Until next time–Natasha.

Doves: A classic symbol of gentleness.

Doves: A classic symbol of gentleness.

Ladylike.

/ toseealife / 1 Comment

Here’s something I heard a girl say last week. “I am not a lady.” And I immediately thought. “I am.”

Of course, I realized at once that being a lady is not seen as a very good thing nowadays. It’s got a bad rap.

I think that girls look at the term ladylike as being restrictive. It means you can’t do a  bunch of things that you like, that guys can do, just because you’re a girl.

I get it. But I’ve never seen being a lady as being restrictive.

It’s true that there are some rules, you can’t just decide to be one and then act however you wish. And it’s also true that being a lady did become something confining after awhile.

You see, what a lot of us don’t realize anymore was that Lady used to be a title. It meant you had some relation to a king or queen. That’s where the term lady-in-waiting came from. Ladyship was part of being nobility. It was a little different from gentry, (gentry are people who don’t have to work and live off their estates usually. Read Pride and Prejudice.) Being a lord or lady meant power as well as money. It meant class.

Eventually being a lady came to mean anyone who demonstrated the qualities a lady was supposed to have. And that’s where the modern era got persnickety.

Being a lady is shown in you taste. What you wear, how you wear it. How you walk, and how you talk. It is called being well-bred.

But as authors like Jane Austen have so candidly pointed out, being well-bred has nothing to do with your wealth, status, or how fine your clothes and house are. It has to do with how you treat people and how you conduct yourself.

A well-bred woman would be one who is gracious to guests and hosts alike, treats everyone as if they are worth being kind to, and does not discriminate between race or class. She does not throw herself away because she  had been taught that she is worth being earned. She ignores vulgarity and certainly won’t participate in it. She strives to shoe her children or any children around her that they need to conduct themselves with dignity.

A lady will not use vulgar language because she will not need to, she ha the ability to make her point using the words everyone can understand.

It may sound by this point like I’m creating an impossible standard. But that is kind of the point.

Not many women achieved being a lady, even in the day and age when it was a title, because it rests on the heart and not the training. It is hard to be really kind, really classy, really set a good example.

And I don’t always. but I want to. So even if the standard seems impossible, I think it is better to reach for the impossible than to settle for being mediocre.

We keep telling girls not to hold back and to reach higher, but we are not telling them that that starts with their character. If you want to excel in life, you need to excel in you soul. You need to be kinder than people expect; braver than they expect; more merciful than they deserve; and stronger than the kind of strength that comes from being uncouth.

If I may be so blunt, why do you deserve to succeed more than men if you treat men worse than you’d treat a dog?

Now I’ not saying you personally do, (I’m sure you don’t,) but you’ve seen examples of it before. Women are told to be ruthless now, and to trash all hint of being at all feminine.

I saw a commercial for a kid’s show that defined being equal with men as being as good at sports and “just as gross in the bathroom.”….?

I mean, seriously? I’m bringing up equality only because I know just talking about being a lady is enough to get a fight going about gender roles.

Here’s the deal, guys need to have the same qualities that I’m talking about. I’m just saying that it’s ladylike because I feel like girls are taught to be ashamed of possessing a lot of the gentler virtues. The fact is, all of us need them. because it’s part of being a full human being to be a kind, forgiving, brave, and strong person.

However, strength is not always force.

I can be a bit rough it’s true, but I never try to  be unkindly so. And girls, I don’t mean that if you have a fiery personality that’s a bad thing. I have one myself, and I don’t think it has anything to do with being a lady. Like I said, it’s a matter of the heart.

But I think we’d all be surprised at how much power there is in the thing that used to be call ladylikeness, and also class. It doesn’t matter really what kind of music you like, or if you can speak proper grammar, or if you know how to behave at a fine restaurant. Your class shows in how you use the things you already have.

This is running long, so I’ll end on that thought. Until next post–Natasha.

045

Like a lily among the thorns.

Thorns and Stones.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

I was away for the weekend and couldn’t post. But here I am again.

So, I was at church camp, something just about every Christian kid has heard of or been to; and a lot of us love it; but some of us have skepticism about the results.

Maybe you can relate, people have an amazing, emotional experience, they say their life will never be the same, and in a month or so they start acting like they always have. and you think “Well that was a lot of nothing.”

This is not just a Christian thing, everyone from pop stars to homeless people knows these kinds of experiences. Those of us who just know people who’ve had them can get pretty skeptical. So why? Is it really true that people just don’t change? And religion, or at least epiphany, is just emotional hype.

I’ll tell you that everyone from public school teachers to youth group counselors are puzzled about this problem. Why? they ask, can’t kids stick with change? Then they sigh and shrug it off and say, oh well. Back to the drawing board. Hey, I admire they’re perseverance, I just wish they didn’t relinquish they’re expectations.

The Bible sums up this problem perfectly in a parable Jesus told, famously called the Sower. The Sower is sowing seeds and they keep falling in the wrong places, some on the road, some among thorns, others among stones, and some on good soil. The ones on the road get eaten by birds. But the ones among the thorns and the stones sprout and grow for a time. But then the thorns grow up and choke the wheat, and the wheat on the stones withers because of the sun, since it has no deep roots.  Jesus then explains that those seeds represent people who hear the word and rejoice but then the cares and troubles of the world (the weeds) choke them, and they fall away. Others rejoice and grow for a time, but they have no root in themselves, and when trouble comes because of the word, they fall away.

I want to point out that the two enemies here are distraction and difficulty.

This camp I was at, the preachers warned us, don’t get distracted when you go home, and not live out what you were taught. Do you know what I started thinking about before I even left?  The things I wanted to do when I got home, and how I wanted to eat a decent meal. (Camp food is okay, but I’ve never eaten much of it. I have low appetite in high altitude.) And do you know what met me when I woke up this morning? The buzz of the TV in another room, and the things I wanted to  get done today.

Distraction.

There maybe not a single thing that more quickly kills passion. And not just spiritual fire, I mean any kind of passion. Except, you’ll notice, the unhealthy kinds. Like addictions to substances, electronics, or gaming, or whatever. Because those things are effortless.

You’ve heard the saying anything worth doing is worth doing right, but there’s another saying, it goes something like “nothing worth having comes easy.”

And it’s true. Experience and Success at worth having, but they aren’t easy. Even if they are, in rare cases, an overnight sensation, it doesn’t last without hard work. And what’s worse is the people who succeed quickly often don’t have the character or the know how to keep on succeeding, and when trouble comes, they fall under.

Think of Luke Skywalker in “The Empire Strikes Back.” He’s all set to take on the enemy, but he’s warned by Yoda about his anger. He also fails because he doesn’t believe enough in what is possible. In the end he recklessly tries to rescue his friends, and receives a major setback, it literally costs him a limb (well, a hand.) Plus, he doesn’t help his friends, they have to endanger themselves to go back and rescue him. In the end, he has a burden he was not ready for, the knowledge of who his father is.

In the end Luke’s mistakes do end up helping him, after he learns from them. But he demonstrated a lack of maturity in making them in the first place. Like the seeds on the stony soil, he hadn’t enough root.

It’s good for us that you can change the kind of soil you are. Weeds can be pulled out, rocks can be removed. If someone else puts the time and effort into doing so.

And the thing is, usually we do need help. It’s rare that we change without receiving a wake up call from someone or something. Usually it has to be their intention to stir us up. Some of us can just go to a camp, or a conference, and that’s enough. Others need a person to walk with them and encourage them.

But sadly, a lot of young people don’t put out the effort to find such a person, and even if they do (as I have) it can be hard to find anyone who really believes you can handle being pushed. And if they don’t, they won’t do you much good.

My last resource, as I have explained in recent posts, is also my first: I go to God. He’s the sower and He knows how to tend the soil to make it better. I used to be poor soil, but I finally caught the fire, and I haven’t lost it yet. But I’m aware that it is not my own ability but God’s careful leading that is responsible for that.

Maybe you have a parent like that, or another mentor, like a teacher or more distant relative. Maybe you don’t, but I encourage you anyway to do your part. Distraction and difficulty are hard obstacles to overcome, but it is possible if you don’t quit.

That’s all for now, over and out–Natasha.

20160330_121452

Weeds, a bird, and clutter.