Merry Go Round

Today's post isn't as much about what pisses me off as it is about what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it. During lunch today, I was watching the local news and they have a segment where they give someone the "Good Neighbor" award. The person given the award was a 30-something African-American woman who had picked herself up by her bootstraps and was now giving talks about not getting stuck in the cycle of poverty. She had been involved in drugs,had several children by different fathers and had ended up in Providence House, a home for battered women. What struck me was when she said she realized that being born into poverty didn't mean it was her destiny to remain there. It has become almost a national obsession to place blame for our condition on outside influences. We are living in victimhood. It really warms my heart to see someone understand that their determination is the single most important factor in their success as a productive member of society. I don't care if their determination comes from their faith or from their own convictions as long as they understand. I just hope there are more people out there that have the civic resposibilty to try to help their friends and family jump off the poverty merry go-round and become the people our Creator intended them to be.