December 6, 2016

Greetings My Friend, Walking to school used to be the norm and I believe we learned many lessons growing up. I remember there were a group of boys that walked in front of me calling me "cat" and making cat gestures with their hands like a cat clawing. It was very upsetting to me, many years later I see that the lesson for me was to keep my head up and ignore them. Then there came the time I had to take a bus to school as I got into Junior High I learned many lessons on the bus from the boys who were so rough. They thought it fun to lift up my dress, I told my Dad who went to the school and discussed this with the principal, soon those boys were not riding the bus anymore. The same with smoking on the bus, when the administration found out those boys were no longer aloud to ride the bus, they had to walk a mile or 2 home. When my children were young I had them walking to and from school as well. It was good exercise and I saw them learning many of the same lessons I had learned along with having neighbors who watched out for all the kids in the neighborhood. My son thought it was fun to get on the bridge and jump off so a neighbor caught him doing that, I was told about the incident and had an opportunity to correct my son. I almost feel like today our children are constantly protected from any of life's struggles that when they grow up they are not able to function. I had felt this way for a while but the recent elections and the protests, grieving young people have me seeing that not having a few of life's struggles has left them unable to handle life when things do not go the way they expect. I am not for bullying in fact there were some kids who were caught throwing stones and hit another child when I was young, they were severely reprimanded for that act of bullying as they should have been. I find life though will have moments of severe stress. A few years before I retired I had a lady who felt it necessary to slam paperwork on my desk and cuss me out. At first I tried to ignore her and I would go for a walk to pray and blow off my anger. When she would not stop I talked to my supervisor and she was made to settle down. It was hard for me to deal with all of the anger she had, it kept me awake many nights and in the end I saw that I needed to confront her behavior head on, when she ignored me then I went to the next step and that stopped it. I learned way back on my walks home how to deal with the issue. I also found a special friend who used to let me know she heard what went on and she gave me the courage to face the lady. I believe she was God's gift to me when I needed reassurance. The protesting, stopping traffic and having safe rooms is nonsense and these young people need to tough it up and go to work for the next election not pout how they did not get their way. They do not like President Elect Donald Trump, that is their right to not like him. Personally I never liked President Obama, I voted against him twice and when he won both times I did not throw a hissy fit and cry, my day to day life carried on. When a candidate with whom I agreed with came to light I voted for him. I accepted Obama's leadership even though I disagreed with the majority of his policies. I used the system to voice my thoughts and did not break any laws in doing so. Maybe it is time we went back to looking at each other directly, speaking to each other and using the struggles in life to strengthen us. Most importantly I think if we invited God back into our homes and into our government we would be a lot healthier than we are now without Him. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet.