Home Improvement...Do a Hard Thing

Wow, when we started this week, we were focusing on CHOOSING to do a hard thing, not having it forced on us. There is a difference.

Yesterday was indeed a reminder of all the hard things we all endure during our lifetime.

911 will forever be etched in everyone's minds.

9/11/08 will be etched in my family's mind as the day we found out that Stacy and Ryan's baby did not have a heartbeat; that the yolk-sac had collapsed; that they would miscarry and not carry their baby to full turn...after a long 2 year struggle to get pregnant.

A very hard thing.

I guess the best challenge for Home Improvement this weekend, whether it is to encourage myself or others to Do a Hard Thing...chosen or forced upon us, is to Do the Next Thing. That was the advice given to Elizabeth Elliot after her missionary husband had been murdered by the very people he was trying to help. She couldn't move past her grief. She couldn't focus or function...and a wise woman advised her to "to do the next thing". Upon hearing that advice, Elizabeth got up and changed her young daughter's diaper.

Nothing heroic, nothing profound, but it was putting one foot ahead of the other that got Elizabeth moving again.

If you have chosen to 'Do a Hard Thing' this week or have been Given a Hard Thing that seems too hard to take on, make this weekend a time to just do the NEXT thing.