We all know the song, we sing it at the top of our lungs when it plays in the car, or in my case, In my head when Im about to do something exciting.. It has nothing to do with risk, but when I do something brave, and being in the public eye its almost like I shout it for all to hear. 

In the Southern Oregon area, there is an uprising of women who are doing incredible things, inspiring, brave, courageous steps.. and they are championing other women to do all  their hearts ever desired and doing the slow clap with true happiness for them as they see them succeed .

This post is for the quiet world changers.

I see you

 

A few woman have reached out to me saying, Im not like those people. Im NOT brave, Im Not a risk taker. 

“NOT TRUE “ You guys, you are the quiet army, the silent world changers. You are the Silent sacrificer of things other than money.. its NO different than the Risk takers like me, shouting from the rooftops. Your selfless sacrifice will not be lost in the noise of the world. 

 

I have 2 woman in my life that have allowed me to write about them, from my perspective. My mom and my sister. Who are polar opposites of myself.  They are quiet, kind, humble & private. Neither of them really do social media. They don’t care to share what they are doing..but they do amazing things.

When I used to ask my mom for advice she always referred to WWJD. Which annoyed me to the point of wanting to punch her face.  I would come to my mom out of desperation, needing a wise word and she would say “What would Jesus do” I still to this day laugh at how absurd my level of annoyance was when she would say this. But now I get it. She really meant that, her advice is ALWAYS based on what she thinks Jesus would do. UMMMMM that takes a lot of self control. As a Mother Im sure she wanted to tell me what she would do, but she didnt, she always referred back to what Jesus would do. Whoa.

Lets talk about her self sacrifice, when we were in middle school, My aunt was supposed to get deployed to Desert storm in Iraq and needed a caretaker for her 2 daughters for 2 YEARS . My mom said ” I will do it”.   Did she forget how poor we were??? We lived in an 1100 ft 3 bedroom 1 bath house and my room was NOT BIG ENOUGH TO SHARE!  This was life changing for all of us in a hard way. It was a risk that my mom took head on, because she saw it as an opportunity to share Gods love with them.  Whoa.

This is the kind of risk taking I’m not good at, and thats okay.

My  younger sister has always been special, an old soul with a passion for mission work and helping people.  She doesn’t tell people, Not even me and I’d say we are pretty close. She has this compassion in her that burns bright as the stars. She is selfless with her time. She volunteers for CASA which is a hard thing to volunteer for, (especially having 2 kids under 7 ) anyone working with social services will tell you its heartbreaking when you deal with kids in sad situations. Last summer she came over and said, “Im getting a foster child tomorrow” ummm “What?!”  She had to make a quick decision, since she volunteered in the organization, it just sort of happened. Her and her husband, jumped quickly through all the hoops of foster care and in a few days they had a 2 year old foster child.  In foster care you are on a need to know basis, you don’t know when they will come take him and have him live with family. Whoa. 

That is RISK. Risk of having your heart ripped out of your chest.

So this is a post for all of you that do the quiet things when nobody sees you. When you fight for what is right, knowing you may lose something for it, thats RISK.  Its LOVING people when you won’t get loved back.  It sacrificing something because you know its the right thing to do. Its walking away from a gossipy co worker.. its asking if you can pray for the lady at the grocery store because she was wiping her tears away in the frozen food isle, thats risk.. keep doing what your doing, you are changing the world.

 

Mindy

 

 

• Images from tumbler and google images.