This is an excerpt of an email and a which includes a forwarded email. Our Program Director, Jen Nation, shared it with her staff. It applies to all the wonderful people who serve Girl Scouts in any capacity: volunteers, staff, donors, board members, parents… Enjoy.
When I read this I thought of all of you and all the pride and dedication you have for your jobs. I also thought about the 12,500 adults and 30,000 girls we serve. I know that more than a few times a year you give up your Saturdays (or Sundays, or week nights, or early mornings) to be at a program event, camp or service unit meeting to ensure that our girls and volunteers have a memorable and successful Girl Scouting experience.
I hope you each know how much of a difference you make in the lives of so many girls and volunteers, as they are choosing to spend their time with us. I also want to remind you each to take care of yourselves and your families. I know it is sometimes hard balancing your time between work and family, and as much as I appreciate it, I want to be sure you are taking those deep breaths for yourself too. Jen.
Marbles
The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.
A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it…
I turned on my ham radio... to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice….He was telling whomever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles." I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say.
"The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.
It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays."
"I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear."
"Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life.There's nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help you get your priorities straight.
" This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."
You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about.I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast."
"What brought this on?", she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles."
E. R. Thrower
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