Flowers Sprouting from Ashes

As I walked outside yesterday evening, there was a low cloud cover, very dark, but the color was silvery and it reminded me of that old saying about dark clouds having a silver lining.

Can there be a silver lining to this dark financial picture that we are facing?

Yes. Adversity can make us more resourceful. By forcing us to reexamine what we have and call forth knowledge that has been dormant, we now find that we have more strength or more ideas than we had.

Did you ever have the experience of trying to make a tasty and nutritious meal out of things that you have in the pantry because you haven't been able to get to the store because of a storm, or because money is tight or because you are tired from working and you just don't feel like going to the store?

Suddenly, as you look over what you have, new ideas for making a meal begin to arise. Hmmmm..............I wonder if this would go well with that? What if I make a batch of this and add some of different seasonings to it? What if I cooked a big batch of this today and combined the leftovers with tomato basil sauce tomorrow?

Similarly, we look around and see if there are some opportunities for making money that we might have missed. Perhaps there are some odd jobs we might pick up, or different strategies for expanding our business.

Times when we are really flush, we don't think much about being resourceful, because we don't need to be.

Nothing focuses our attention like necessity. Perhaps out of all this financial fiasco will come a new awakening, a new sense of values, not just about money, but about how we spend our time, our relationships, our energy.

Look back at some of those photos. After the great forest fires in Yellowstone, the following year, some of the most beautiful flowers and trees were sprouting up among the ashes.