I watched a movie which always "gets" me--"Pay it Forward". The little boy initiates the concept of doing favors for folks and then asking in return that the recipients do favors for three other people and so on. His teacher describes it as "utopian", but I call it God's Plan. "...for when I was naked, you gave me clothes; when I was hungry, you fed me; when I was sick, you took me in"....a paraphrase of the text from Matthew, but you get the picture. "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."
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What gets me in this movie is how this intense child works so hard to "fix" things in peoples lives, and ends up dying of a stab wound at the end. His theory or project of Pay It Forward has gone out all over the country due to a story done by a reporter who heard about it in L.A., and he wouldn't rest until he determined the "source" of this miraculous event. A child? Really? The reporter was just blown away. Sometimes we try to fix things in our lives, using our own tools instead of the ones God gave us, and more often than not, end up getting 'stabbed', too!
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A friend of mine from long ago was talking with me once about the charitable groups she supports and raises money for, etc. She told me not only did it make her "feel good" to be helping people, but it was also good publicity, and, on top of that, a tax write-off. Well, no good deed ever goes unpunished, I've heard. Someone else told me once that a "deed isn't good if anyone else knows about it". I like that, really do.
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I woke up tired again this morning, probably because I was so busy at work in my dreams again. Once more I was working in the nursing home back in Manty, playing 'beat the clock' with setting the tables and washing the dishes, trying to remember whose turn it was to load the dish washing machine, take off or clear tables. We rotated every month. I've been out of there for 20 years now and still can't remember whose turn it is! At one point in my dream I left my position to run outside and greet Martie's sister, June, who was coming across the lawn with my sister, Lori, and her hubby, David!!! And the fireman were outside on the street collecting money for Jerry's Kids............Joseph, where are you when I need a dream interpreted????? For years and years, I've had this dream of being back at work at Shady Lane, struggling to get the trays upstairs under the most trying of circumstances, as though everyone is doing what they can to prevent my getting the people fed up there.........hidden frustration? Someone elses' fault???
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After one of these nights of frustrating dreaming, I told my then husband that I was so tired yet in the morning. He said, "Of course you are! You were up all night working!"
