Never Too Busy

I have been watching what is going on in Haiti. My husband and I watched a special on television last night. I started weeping uncontrollable. When I saw the faces of the living and the dead, it broke my heart. But not in a way you would think. I thought about how I've seen that same look of hopelessness here where I live. They are in crisis mode in Haiti there's no doubt about it but we have situations going on right under our noses. We are a nation in crisis.
My heart was also breaking for my youngest son and a few other people that have been around me. I felt like I had failed all of these listed. My son got to a place that I couldn't reach out and do anything to help. And these few other people were going through situations similar to my childhood and I didn't reach out to them. And what makes me the maddest is that they were right in front of me. I would talk to them weekly...look into their eyes and they would ask when we could get together. And in my own busyness, I didn't recognize the hurting, the same hurting I went through as a child. I was so angry with myself. Have I gotten so busy that I don't have time for people that God puts in front of me to help? Am I so selfish that I can't look outside of my own little petty problems to seek someone else and help them? I talk daily about how I want to reach out to others and somehow I've failed a few that have been right in front of me all along.
I am not saying this as pity party for me or put guilt on anyone else. I'm saying this so that I remember to stop and take the time for anyone needing me and to not think I will always have the time because that just isn't true. Time is precious. I need to take advantage of each opportunity given to me. I pray that you will do the same. Who is in your backyard that can use a smile or uplifting word? We just never know how something very small can change someone's life!

"My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?" Galatians 5:16-18 (The Message)