The Tug

You know how when you read something, you feel like it was written just for you?

Well, that just happened.

I clicked on my friend and neighbor's post at Five of My Own. (Click and come back. I shall wait.)

This paragraph jumped out at me from Lori's post:

And maybe that's the problem. Too many kids in need to see them as real...human...our own. Or perhaps the problem is too big to see how an one person can make a difference. 147 million? Best to keep an impersonal distance from such things.       

No, I am not thinking of adopting a child. My husband can now pick his jaw up from the floor.

(Poor Matt when it comes to this blog and my thoughts in writing.)

But this is exactly my own thought process when I think about taking action. Lori got it spot on, I am not proud to say.

Whether it is promoting the sale of T-shirts through Ize-T.com to help send insecticide treated nets to malaria stricken countries ... or going on a mission trip ... or joining the cause to stop the sale of young girls that are younger than my own daughter in the United States ...

... I get completely enveloped in the statistics, and I eventually get too overwhelmed to feel like there is anything one person can do... one family can do.

And, then, I think of someone like Lori (and, let's not forget her husband, Dart) at Five of My Own, who have three biological sons, two daughters (both were adopted into their family) and another adoptive child on the way. Um, if my math is right ... that is six children ... because Lori and Dart have opened their hearts, selflessly. All of the other logistics fall into place.

They always do, don't they, if we are just willing to follow that "tug?"

It is way too easy for us to always keep non-productive thoughts tucked in the back of our minds, "We don't have the time," or "We don't have the money," or "That's just not for me."

I also think of our friends, Staci and Phillip, who just  for those residents that were left with nothing after tornados swept through their neighborhoods and businesses. They, too, felt that 'tug' on a Sunday night and ran with it ... and now, there are hundreds of families that will feel blessed to have some "normalcy" restored in their broken lives. 

When I feel overwhelmed with the stats, I need to think of Lori and Dart, Staci and Phil ... just normal folk following their hearts to do what they can to help ... because what if they had been complacent to take action like I so often am?

There is always something I/we can do ... if we just open our hearts ... follow the tug ... and let the logistics fall into place.