Building a Future

MLK wasn’t the only one to have a dream. We all have one of those. Your value isn’t something that is placed on you by another.
Your value comes from the inside.
YOU get to decide!
MLK’s dream didn’t die with him. The beat goes on.
When I was younger, my new husband and I were in the army.
We’d left my hubby’s well-off family (they owned several businesses, a new home so large it had a rifle range in the basement, and a lot of land), however, by the time we’d returned home, everything they owned had been sold.

Quicksand sunk my father-in-law’s finances. His construction company didn’t carry enough insurance and the large building they were erecting disappeared into nothing along with his money.
Giving up was not an option.
They had younger children to raise.
This is where faith came in, and while they probably prayed, the faith they had in each other was what sustained them.  
Charlie got up one morning, reached over and kissed his wife, and said, “Time to get up and get started.” Then he laughed.

“I guess the Big Guy wanted to help us out by ‘cleaning our plate’,” he told her. “Last night I had a dream.”
Thus began a new chapter in their life they rented an old house that now contained a few remnants of their past, and Charlie went looking for a job.
One of their children, on hearing about their father’s early morning revelation added, “I guess when one hits bottom, the rebound from that shows the quality of person you are.” That became their mantra.

Charlie and his wife now were eating bread from the day-old rack.
“It’s still edible. We eat day-old, or older bread all the time. We just have to tighten our belts a bit.”
“Real caring is the true sign of a warrior in this battle called life,” the mother explained to her kids.
Within a couple years time, Charlie’s dream led him to finance a small construction company, and he was on the road agaian.
What led to Charlie’s success?

He had a dream, he had a sense of humor and he had someone he loved who shared his dream with him.
Two is always stronger than one!
In the end, our success or failure is up to us.
Stopping to whine takes away valuable work time.
Crying is a must, but failure is only failure if it is allowed to become the master of the house.

And--before you older folks think there’s a date stamped on the bottom of your calendar--allow me to explain.
My new husband and I are in our 80s.
We lost our last spouses to cancer but just couldn’t spare the time to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves waiting to grow old.

The middle school contacted me to teach art. After checking my credentials, they looked no farther for a teacher. They came to me!
However, COVID came knocking at the classroom door, and the school had to close. But my retirement didn’t start there. No.
I began clearing paths through our 27 acres of woods and then someone came knocking on my door.

My son, Norm, answered, chatted a few minutes with the man standing there, and as a friend of a friend, he was invited in for coffee.
“Hi,” the man said. “My name is ‘Bud.’” Thus began the next chapter in my life’s adventure.
We just completed a three-week trek through six states, meeting each others’ families and life-long friends.
Through this all, Bud and I have found that a dream is like the icing on top of a giant cake: it’s only as big as one chooses to make it.

AND why bother with just a thin layer when the whole world is at one’s doorstep?