Want Inspiration? Spend Time With Animals AND Kids!

Since a little girl, one of my goals in life was to be a mommy. I spent hours playing and being a mommy to my baby dolls. At 12, I started babysitting and my love for children became even greater. Later, my husband and I managed a daycare of 85 children. You must love children to run a daycare. We did!

My love for children is one of the reasons that I work at Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. I thoroughly enjoy serving in Radiology where I can love on those with broken or fractured bones. Other kids have much more serious orthopedic issues. The love and care they receive are second to none. I feel like, in some way, I’m brightening their day and helping to dispel any fears that might have. So, of course, when asked if I’d help with the hospital’s Farm and Ranch Day on Saturday – I did.

I felt at home with all the farm animals. After all, I’m quite the ranch-hand, especially after my husband and I had 75-head of cattle and a horse on our 150-acre Oklahoma tract of land and helping out with my Austin family's many farm animals, including chickens. So, I was amused I was assigned to show the week-old baby chicks and the sweet children fascinated by them.

Most all the children have been or are patients of the hospital where they receive such amazing care. This day was, of itself, therapy. Children were able to learn so much about what farms bring us. A dairy farmer demonstrated how cows are milked these days – certainly not “old school” as he attached the devices that milk them. There was a western group there that showed kids how to ride and rope mock horses, get their photos taken on the stagecoach (me, too). There were grown egg-laying hens, pigs, goats, and a pool stocked with huge catfish where kids could fish and catch the fish. Miniature therapy horses were there that inspire and soothe patients who are learning how to use adaptive equipment like walkers and prostheses. It was an overall great day of family fun.

I was especially touched by this sweet boy on the tractor in the photo. Earlier, I saw him with his running blades prosthetics on getting knocked down accidentally by a little girl. He looked up at the little girl and said: “I’m so sorry!” As if, it was his fault. "What a little gentleman. You have taught him well. It wasn't even his fault!" I said to his mother. He was a champion and one of the children so blessed to have been cared for by this wonderful hospital of dedicated medical staff.

see hope and vision in these precious children. They are made to feel nothing is impossible in their lives. They can overcome any obstacle that they are facing. I’m reminded of a sweet song the children’s choir that I directed years ago sang. “I am a promise - I am a possibility - I am a promise with a capital - I am a great big bundle of potentiality - And I am learning to hear God’s voice - And I am trying to make the right choices - I’m a promise to be - anything He wants me to be!""

We can learn a lot from these kids. Many folks have grown bitter and disappointed through their years and have lost their hope and vision, so they want us to lose ours as well. They don’t feel like a bundle of potentiality, so they don’t want anyone else to feel like one either! This post today is to tell you “Don’t listen to naysayers. Listen to God. If He has called you to climb a mountain, cross a sea, teach a class, sing a song, make a speech, build a bridge, write a book, fly a plane, land a plane and even jump out of a plane -- then JUST DO IT. Make this your personal slogan: “I CAN DO all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13. You are a possibility!