Is this life a waste?

No, of course. God has put each of us here for a purpose. Otherwise He would have taken us back to Him as soon as we were born. Or why would He made us in the first place?
A friend said, "I hope the end of the world will come soon, we are just wasting our lives here". I hinted that he could always do something useful for others. That would be up to him what he would want to do with his life that it's given to him.
As a friend I feel sorry for him that he would think his life is so. There are so many opportunities in life everyday that comes our way which we can do, help to make some life's better, easier, happier, in different circumstances. I think you will agree with me. Or we could just thinking after we have gotten all that we want, need physically, earthly things, we would be satisfied and happy. But it proves to us it is not enough, and yes you would think life is a waste. It is only with sharing your riches, materially and spiritually you will  find your time is not wasted.
Yes, we will die eventually, each of us. But that is not our destination. The journey is what important, what you do, see and learn on the way, that is what makes it count. So when you get to your destination, you will feel so good that you have traveled well, using your time in your travel well.

Shepherd's job

A big job, recognized, a high post and on and on it goes with this worldly concept of success. And if we don't reach any of those we feel we haven't achieved much in this life.
This mindset has been with me these last few days and days, months and years before. So I decided to sit down and ask my answer Man, Jesus, about it.
He encouraged me by showing me the example of David's life in the Bible. He was a shepherd boy, but he was faithful in what he was doing, before he was chosen to be the king.
God only requires us to be faithful in what He has placed us to be, asked us to do, and He will do the increase, that's how I conclude the matter from His answer to me.

Whew, so encouraged, will be the strength of my day today, and days to come whenever I get tempted to feel that I haven't done anything big or so called successful. 

Preparations

We all  heard that so often in our daily activities. For me it is preparation for the nursery class that I am teaching. If I have prepared the materials for the next day, the day runs smoother with 17 kids I have in the class. It makes sense, ha! Yet, finding time to prepare is a challenge for me, as I am also teaching other classes in our center. If I want my time with the nursery kids to be fun then I have to prepare, it goes with the older children too. It would be chaos, and I get frazzled of what to do next. I can see it is the same thing with my spiritual and faith life. I also need to prepare, so whatever circumstances come my way, I am prepared.

I find it is an effort to do that daily. I read and hear God's Word daily in one form or another. I pray with my partner. I feel good and feel prepared for the day. I think it goes with any work that we do, when we prepare ahead of time, we are ready for the show.

Desk arrangement

You know how it is with your desk. It is very convenient place to just drop things on top of it, in fact all things that you think you would get to put away, used, needed to be reminded later, etc. It is very useful. It is with my desk. So I normally organize it and put things away when I get to it, when it fills up with all kinds of stuff. As I finished tidying it this time, it turned out to be a different set up than before. I didn't plan it, it just happened. Well, the parallel of it is that with the way God shows us His plan. He didn't just reveal to us at once, everything that we ought to know about the plan. Instead He leads us step by step as we take the first step He shows us. Then He will show us the next, the next and the next, til we reach His plan, and we realize wow, it's really neat. Trust and obey for there is no other way but to trust and obey, I am reminded of this old hymn. Beautiful words and music. 

God speaks through a three year old

A volunteer came to our center after reading the ad that we sent out in our neighborhood area. She is 65, yet very fit in her later years. She told us what made her to come and decide to volunteer in teaching the children in our center. She has a three year old grand daughter. She is super smart, she can use the computer and other electronic gadgets. The same morning we put out the ad for volunteers, the grand daughter brought her the yellow paper with the ad on it and said, 'grandma please read this', without knowing what it was because she can't read yet.. She just wanted her grand mother to read it. And that was our ad. So she knew that that was something she ought to do. The grand daughter also had said to her mother that she would have a baby in her stomach, even before she got pregnant. And sure enough she got pregnant. So our volunteer lady took it as a sign for her to join us.
God speaks through a child. God speaks to us throughout the day, throughout our life if we listen. He uses different ways to convey His will to us, to convey His love to us, to convey His plans for us.

And if we listen, we will hear Him speaking to us so clearly. 

Our influence

Our teacher left for her pregnancy leave after being with us for 11 months. Of course we are going to miss her, she was with the kids with her whole heart and doing her part sincerely and sacrificially in the center. There are good people in this world who are still doing it for others with not much appreciation. We do appreciate her so much.
I'm sure her influence in the kids' lives will be remained with them always as ours with her. She wrote to us a heart touching comment on her final day.

This is how it goes:
Thank you so much for everything you believe in me. You are like my parents. In today's world nobody is going to believe in me so much but mam and sir do. Thank you for guiding me. You are my teacher, friend. Right now I don't have the words to explain. Mam you told me to learn to be honest, simple, polite, be faithful and be yourself. I love you mam and sir, I am going to miss you a lot. Rinky Singh.

I am touched and encouraged that our effort in giving her the chance to teach the kids, she didn't have any experience, and having faith in her, has made an impact in her life.
Continue in your good works, in due season you shall reap if you faint not as the promise of God says in the Bible. This applies to me in this situation, it helps me to know that God's love I have shared with even one person will stay in another's person, and will also help her to want to do the same. I thank God for His wonderful love.

Dear Rinky, you will be missed.