There is a movement shaking the ground we walk upon today. I’m not speaking of a movement for change, but a movement of change. This change is not positive nor is it conducive to a happy healthy world. We no longer reach out a hand to help but reach out a hand to hurt. Our words are no longer meant to comfort but meant to slash and belittle. Our hearts no longer hurt for those in pain or those who cannot help themselves; as they are too full of hatred and anger or indifference.
Yet in all this bleakness a light shines, the light of our children. An eight (8) year old boy who sees his friend unable to eat a hot lunch at school because he had no funds raises money to feed 3000 students hot meals daily at school. A thirteen (13) year old girl begins making fleece blankets to send to orphanages around the world after her brother, who served as a missionary, came home to tell his family stories of the children suffering; there are now children in ten (10) states participating in her program. A ten (10) year old girl who, after visiting her grandmother in a nursing home, starts a band that serenades the elderly to show them they have not been forgotten. Children around the world are paying it forward; making a difference in hopes of making a better world.
As parents we hold our children close, teaching and molding them into the adults of tomorrow; yet today we find we have as much to learn from them as they do from us. As adults we have become cold, callous and indifferent to our neighbors and our world. We close our doors at night locking ourselves in and the rest of the world out. Unfortunately, along with the locked doors we have locked our hearts as well.
It is time for a new movement, a movement of love, compassion, caring, and appreciation. A movement that brings a tear to our eyes again, that rattles our soul and envelopes our hearts with more happiness than we could ever imagine. The change our world needs begins with us.
To each of us I challenge to Pay It Forward, smile and hold the door open for a stranger, check on your elderly neighbor, reach the top shelf for someone at a grocery store, hold a child’s hand to comfort, pay for a meal for someone who otherwise would not eat, smile at strangers for no reason. Close your mind and live through your heart, be the person to others that you would find comfort in yourself.
