help in a snow drift

Whatever your reactions to or thoughts on Barack Obama and the change slogan, this little video makes a valid point.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough to care for the people around me, to go out of my way to make someone's day better, or to stop thinking about my own agenda long enough to see who might need encouragement. This weekend Eric and I drove about an hour into the mountains to do a little snowshoeing. But before we got our car parked and our snowshoes on, we got stuck in a little snow drift/ditch. For a few minutes Eric tried pushing while I gave it some gas. No luck. And although I am also very strong, we decided that it would be best for Eric to be the pusher and not me. A few minutes into our attempts a car with two couples inside stopped by. We tried a number of different things to get our car out and finally, an hour later, we succeeded! These four wonderful people stayed with us the entire time! A few other people stopped on their way passing by, but gave up quickly on what looked like a very stuck vehicle. These two couples I have no doubt, saved us from spending many hours in the mountains NOT snowshoeing. I share this story because our day was impacted quite greatly by a few people who forfeited their own plans to get us out of a ditch. Thank you to our kind mountain friends!

My job has been really hard lately. In summary, I work with children and families who are somewhere between an initial placement in foster care and adoption. My cases include newborns, children, and teenagers, and families with substance abuse and mental health issues, poverty, homelessness, and domestic violence. Sometimes I don't feel brave enough. Sometimes when I look into the eyes of a child who has been severely neglected, I can't see healing. And sometimes I feel like it would just be easier to just back out. So I guess what I want to pledge this year is to not give up hope. I won't back down, because this is my little corner of the world to make a difference. I believe that caring for and loving people is inevitably going to become hard; it's just the nature of relationship and this world we live in. But we can't give up hope. And I will cling to the Hope that I have so that I might be a part of change.