Baby Steps

Did you ever see the movie "What about Bob?" It is a classic comedy that I could watch over and over and over again - and continue to laugh every time. The movie features Bill Murray - a psychological patient - and Richard Dreyfuss - a psychologist, Dr. Leo Marvin. In the movie Dr. Marvin rights a book titled, "Baby Steps." It's about overcoming problems one small step at a time. My family often borrowed this saying, "baby steps to the car...," "baby steps to the school...," "baby steps to the refrigerator..." I like the idea, anyone can reach their goals by beginning with small steps.

I just returned from another life-changing adventure in India. We have a big dream to start a second orphanage, a trade school and a bible college. It will require more money than any of us possess, more time than we imagine, and more skill than we currently have. It is a big dream! I was thinking on the airplane home about my involvement in India and how it has progressed. Had some one shown me this dream three years ago when the work began, it would have been daunting. If someone had shown me the work we have already accomplished, it would have been unbelievable. How did we get where we are today? Baby steps! Though the next phase of the dream is large, I can break it down in to tangible bits and take it piece by piece - baby steps to creating a master plan for the new site, baby steps to estabilishing a child sponsorship program. Bit by bit, the dream will become reality. When I arrived home I had hundreds of emails to greet me (285 in one inbox!). I wanted to share a portion of one of the emails because it helped strengthen my resolve, that with God we can accomplish the seemingly impossible. We just have to take baby steps toward our goals.

The Daffodil Principle
...Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

"Who did this?" I asked Carolyn. "Just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house.

On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking", was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958."

For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration.

That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time--often just one baby-step at time--and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world ...

I will take baby steps to reach my goal and impact the world.