Change Your Heart . . .Change the World

How many times do we think . . .

what difference can I make?

These last several months, we have been bombarded with political ad campaigns, messages, slanders, accusations, promises and more.

People have become angry and emotional.

The tension that surrounded me was very uncomfortable.

Good friends were not speaking to each other because of differing opinions.

 

Combine that with other issues and it became a rather stressful situation.

 

The election is over - and I am not going to talk about my feelings on that here.

They are my feelings and my opinions and that will be reserved for other venues.

But I heard some people talk about their decision to not vote -

they stated that their individual vote would never make a difference anyway. . .

 

And that did bring up a lot of feelings about the difference a single person can make . . .

 

Years ago, I was at a leadership conference.

One of the speakers had been instrumental in changing national laws on the education of children with disabilities -

His child had been diaganosed with autism and he fought for the rights of his child.

He said he had been asked, many times, what he was bothering and fighting so hard.

People told him he would never make a difference and he was just wasting his time.

He answered them with the following quote:

"if you think you're too small to make a difference, you haven't spent the night with a mosquito." (african proverb)

 

That quote resonated with me

.

How many nights had I laid in bed hearing that unmistakable high pitched squeal that only a mosquito makes.

I throw the light on and look like a crazed woman as my eyes dart around the room trying to find the beast - like it is huge and easy to be seen;

unable to go to sleep because of the anxiety of it all.

Good grief!

 

But it confirms the truth of this statement.

 

We spend a lot of our life wishing for change.

And we try to change things within our control - our haircolor, our hobbies, our address . . .

But the bigger issues - we tend to wait for someone else.

We figure we are too small and unimportant to make a difference - it's someone else's responsibility.

We tell ourselves we are not good enough; we are not qualified enough; we are not important enough.

 

When I heard the quote in this piece of art (which was shared with me by a dear friend),

it resonated with me as truth just as the quote about the mosquito did.

It reminded me that by doing what is important to us -

by following our individual passions and our individual heart -

by listening to that inner voice -

we have the power to create change . . .

Change in ourself; change in our home; change in our community; change in our world.

And by moving forward in a positive direction, we have no idea how many lives we can influence for good.

In fact - when we stop and really thing about it, it is kind of awesome - isn't it?

 

So what is your heart trying to tell you?

and more importantly . . .are you listening?