Our glass of life can be either half-full or half-empty, depending on what we see. And with that, my holiday gift to you is three short vignettes of a few people whose glass is always half full. Enjoy.
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Sarah is your typical 25 years old, trying to balance school, marriage, work and sanity. What makes Sarah atypical is the Girl Scout troop she established at the Children’s Hospital in Richmond, VA.
Sarah’s five Girl Scouts all have one thing in common: all are severely handicapped, either through cerebral palsy or some horrible accident. They sit in high-tech wheelchairs, their bodies sometimes twitching involuntarily and their faces nearly void of expression.
During a 90 minute Girl Scout meeting, Sarah and her volunteers cheered, encouraged and moved the Girl Scouts to engage them in their merit badge activity. The Girl Scouts remained expressionless and it was difficult to get any feedback from them. I asked Sarah how she knew if the girls understood and what motivated her to do this. Sarah got right to the point. “I don’t,” she said, “but I want to give them the best quality of life that I can.” It’s all about them.
Half full.
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Abby-Jill worked with a high-powered pharmaceutical company after college. In 1998 she left her promising career and its impressive financial perks to be the Director of Extension Ministries for her church in Chicago.
But there’s more. She led a group of volunteers to work at an orphanage in the Baja region of Mexico for a few years then was asked to replace the retiring orphanage director. So, in October of 2004, Abby-Jill waived adios to her home, friends, family and career and moved south of the border to run an orphanage of 90 kids.
And there’s still more. Abby-Jill was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in June of 2005 and is back in the United States for treatment. And now she travels – when she’s able – to establish support centers in churches throughout the country so no one ever has to go through breast cancer treatment alone.
Half full.
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HOO-AHH! That passion and vitality resonated through the halls of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center one day last fall. These 20- and 30-something soldiers, all muscle and six-pack abs, hollered, joked and taunted each other and the doctors who cared for them. And most of these soldiers had at least one prosthetic where an arm or a leg belonged. If anyone has earned the right to claim a half-empty glass, it’s one of these guys (or gals). Instead, they gave us a gift – the gift of gratitude, acceptance and abundance.
Really, really half-full!
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And that is my holiday wish for you – that you always see your glass as half full and your world overflows with Sarahs, Abby-Jills, our very brave service members and all others just like them.
Get out and give back.
