THERE IS A certain convict that I have been corresponding with for several years down in Texas that recently got a "new" typewriter...
He had completely worn out the old one.
It was not very easy to correct his errors on the old machine and the letters he would type were full of typos most of the time. I was taken back by the cost of the new one...$110...quite a price to pay for anything in prison, and it was very elevating to my own soul to hear how joyful he was at being able to buy it.
I wrote him a letter and told him that every once in a while all of us need a little new in our lives.
Makes me wonder...
Why don't we sweep out the old grudges from our lives, rip the pages of regret out of our life book, focus on how much good God has done for us, plant a seed of hopefulness in our neighbors, write a special memory on the wall paper of someone's heart? Replace the fears of tomorrow with the good we can do today. Make a difference where we stand. Do the little things that matter. Hope more, love more, find new ways to serve, get out of ourselves and into the lives of others.
What stirs you? What is your passion? What makes you get up early, go to bed late, work harder, stay longer, risk more, cry less, laugh more? What if there was no way for you to lose? No way to be disappointed, no "on the other hand," nothing but good consequences at the end of the day?
What if you could "buy" a dream, make a wish come true, be the person you've always known you could be? How hard would it be to put some "new" in your life by changing just one simple thing - your attitude?
What if we looked forward to helping others instead of considering it a chore, that's right a chore, don't think I'm the only one that ever had the thought, "I could be doing something I want to do instead of helping so and so." I'm not. Neither are you.
What kind of "new" could you and I put in our lives that would give us the joy that this convict feels with a new typewriter? Could it be as simple as looking each day for someone to serve in some way even if it is small? Yep that would do it for me. I could get up for some "new" in my own life, a change in my attitude, an opportunity to serve others and the good part is those "others" are all around me.
I think perhaps we are so conflicted about what we should be doing and don't do that it makes us all start searching for something different or new to put joy in our lives when all along the "new" is simply to write on our own internal typewriters a "new name" to search each day. I must do better. Ken Upchurch (Ken is a shepherd with the Kensington Woods church of Christ in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.)
"Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith." Galatians 6:10 Mike Benson
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