THE EFFORT IT TAKES...

I love this picture. It was taken at King’s Landing last summer when our family escaped to Fredericton for the weekend and visited the historical site there. In the back room of one of the old houses, lay this collection of soaps that had been handmade over an open hearth. What work it took to make the things needed for everyday existence. How easy it is for us to toss a bar of soap into the basket at the store and not even think about how something is made!

Things that matter, take time. It takes 9 months for a child to grow enough to be born. It takes hours and hours, stitches and stitches to make a quilt or complete a cross stitch design. When it becomes all about how fast and how easily, how cheaply and how effortlessly we can obtain something, I think we miss out somehow and cease to really value what we end up with. Fast food is not really satisfying on the same level as a meal that you smell cooking for hours. Cheap clothing often unravels or wears out so easily. It would be a shame if we continue down this road of a “disposable society” too far.

‘All growth depends on activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”
-Calvin Coolidge

We should stop being afraid of the effort it will take to accomplish something. Good parenting is hard work. Keeping a marriage vibrant is work. Building a career or making life transitions are work. I am learning to savour the effort as well as the goal... and that is making all the difference!