Tag Archives: Great Depression

Shutdown or Meltdown?

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The times…they are changin’....yes, they sure are! In this country we have always known a time of plenty or at least since the Great Depression. That lasted way too long and it had always made me wonder WHY? What exactly made the climate in this country so abstract that our financial stability is blown to smithereens? Do we not have wise MEN that control it all? Have we not been proven to be the greatest nation of the world? Were President Hoover and President Roosevelt not equipped to handle the workings of our country? Where do we lay the blame…or do we?

So many questions I have always had….now I have one or two of the answers. Today, as I sit and wonder the same exact questions…Day 4 of the Shutdown of the U.S. Government, I see how it happens….the wise and equally able “MEN” and some Women who are “in charge” of us all just can’t get it worked out. For around twenty years our country lived in utter failure and it mostly started with an ACT. (aren’t they blaming the Affordable Health Care Act now for this?)

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act passed in June 1930. The act interrupted trade and created an environment of high unemployment (reaching its peak at 25% in 1933). After the crash in October 1929, unemployment peaked at about 9% and returned to about 6% before the tariffs were implemented. While the stock market crash was significant, it was not the beginning of the Great Depression. (Ask.com) This Act hurt foreign trade and after reading about it….I am still lost. As usual most of the mumbo jumbo that comes out of our government is hard to understand for us regular people. (or maybe just ME?)

This leads me to this conclusion: Many smart people “think” they are doing good work by proposing these laws and Acts and assuming they will lead to good for the U.S. but sometimes they backfire. NOT MUCH EVER CHANGES! In 2008 we had a huge housing crash for which we still are muddling through….when is it ever going to stop? Probably never……that is the cold hard facts!

These are the times we ask the hard questions of God….or maybe I am the only one? I have hit a wall, I seem to not be able to get a handle on what is going on these days, world and country wide as well as personally. It feels like the heavens are brass….even though I know they are not. God is ALWAYS working on my behalf, this is what I know for sure. HE has not SHUTDOWN and it seems he is not real upset at my MELTDOWN! I sure do wish he would give me a clue…throw me a bone….send a Dove with a twig in its beak…something to let me know we will survive.

I hope I do not sound as if I have given up, I HAVE NOT GIVEN UP.….but I sure do surrender to HIS WILL. I am unable to assume I have any idea what is going on…with the world as we know it or even my own little life. I can’t even begin to feel the fear the country had back in the 1920’s, my grandparents knew it well and even my parents as children. That seems like a very long time ago and yet it is right here looking down the gun barrel at us. I am not particularly worried, just sober and conscience of what may come. Is this only a shutdown for a short while or will it be a total meltdown for us all? This is not a who’s at fault, we all are. We hired “them” to control what happens to our country.

I am not a super political person, maybe I should be…the lull of apathy has over taken my zeal of civil rights and not take this lying down ……ness! I have learned to allow God be in control and in that know that this shutdown may just turn into a Meltdown. Lord be kind….in your judgement, remember mercy.

Habakkuk 2:3

LORD, I have heard the report about You and I fear. O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years, In the midst of the years make it known; In wrath remember mercy.

Maranatha!

 

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Ordinary Girl

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Recently, I was reminded by my dear friend from college of a time when I had thought my life was a great as it could be. She posted some pictures of us laughing and having a blast like we always did. It made me pause with nostalgia remembering a girl I had seemed to forget about. An ordinary girl with big dreams and places to go.

The future looked bright; I had it all ahead of me.

I was young and popular and the pictures weren’t ones I wanted to hide in a drawer. For me it was a good time in my life. A Kappa ALpha Fraternity “Southern Belle!” It wasn’t always that way th20120404-153920.jpgough.

Growing up on a my beloved farm and then having life take an awful turn when I was ten, created a feeling of loneliness and abandonment. There was only one thing that I had on my side, I thought….but it was the best thing, Hope. Somehow during this time of unknowing and fear I had this tangible feeling, a sense of freedom that told me, “you can do this, you can have Hope!” I thought I could do anything I wanted, accomplish anything. I felt that deep down in my soul even though I had no real understanding of what I felt. I wasn’t raised with a strong christian background. My maternal grandmother whom I adored did attend church regularly.

But, I have not many memories of being taught any strong spiritual strengths from that time except for my sister who made me read the Bible when ever I asked a question that could be answered by the Word.

For some reason I have always had ….the look on bright side personality which is ironic because I spend most of my thoughts about myself assuming I will end up walking in a hole or tripping up steps and splitting may pants or something equally embarrassing. Not normal I know but I have a constant movie reel running in my head and when I appears the worst thing could happen I fear it will. On the flip side I have crazy feeling of “Hope” and I just believe that life will turn out okay.

What I do know is that I was raised with a strong work ethic, my father and mother always were hard workers, none of that laying around watching television for them, there was always something to be done. I know that if you want to eat you must work, if you want new shoes…work to earn them. They were not special, that is how they were raised, children of the Great Depression. They had little or nothing. They were just ordinary people living their ordinary lives raising ordinary kids day in and day out. And I was an ordinary girl but I always had my sights on an un-ordinary life.

What I saw for my life was fantastic and fearless, full of excitement and mystery and an unabashed determination to get where I wanted to be. I am here to say today that to this point I feel like I have made it, maybe not what I had first expected my life to be, but what I got was so much better. It has been a road less traveled and a road that has been splattered with rocks and dirt and puddles and blockades.

But when I total it all up I have been given a great gift, the gift of a belief that there is always room for more, the day can always bring better and I have the ability to make it a better day for someone else. I still believe I will become all the things that my little girl mind had hoped for. I have had some pretty exciting times in my life and I have been loved by some very fantastic people.

The mysterious meanings of life have been revealed to me (well, some of them) and I have raised some fearless children and I still have an unabashed determination to get where I am going with a pretty special mate to go there with me. I am still hopeful…hope filled actually; and for an ordinary girl who could ask for more.

 

 

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