re·source·ful (adjective): able to deal skillfully and promptly with new situations and difficulties
The old braided rug stays in the kitchen. To most anyone else, it is nothing more than just that. What I see is the memories of crocheting scraps of material all sewn together with my grandmother. We spent hours tearing up the scraps, sewing them together at the ends and rolling the long strips into a ball. That took place before any crocheting began. It is nothing more than a rug, but it symbolizes much more. The rag rug was something made out of left overs. Scraps, from things that would have been thrown away.
Like so many things back then, you learned to be resourceful. If your shoes became worn, you used those shoes to play or work in. If your clothes wore out they became a quilt or passed on to another. We grew most of our food, and made sure that we canned and froze and saved for the winter months. We did this because we couldn’t always afford to buy new things.
It was a different era back then.
Though our world is much different today, I learned valuable lessons from the days back on the farm. Lessons that have carried over throughout my whole life. One of the most important lessons came from this rug, the lesson of resourcefulness and being a good steward of what has been given to us.
There are times in our lives when we will be forced to be resourceful. Times when things turn out different from what was planned and we are left with having to make a beautiful rug out of scraps. It is at these times that we learn who we are and if we have what it takes to make it and succeed.
When the unexpected happens do you panic?
Do you spend more time than necessary trying to deal with it?
Do you take out your frustration on those around you?
Every day leaders working to be prepared for new or unexpected situations; intentionally making a difference in the lives around us.
The Every Day Leader 
Hi Drew,
It is a challenge to get an entitlement generation to engage and to think of resourcefulness, we are a throw away society anymore.
the one good thing is that we have never seen a movement like we are seeing today where people want to make a difference and they want their lives to count for something. This gives a small open door to teach resourcefulness and other valuable lessons of the past.
It concerns me what type of legacy we are leaving the next generation. Unfortunately, I believe we’re failing as a society to instill that resourcefullness you describe so well. There seems to be an overpowering sense of entitlement that does nothing less than depreciate the true “value” of that wonderful braided rug. Thanks for sharing this morning!