Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-11-01
TURNING GRAY
DAYS TO GOLD

A young girl writes rather bitterly
of the grayness of her existence. She
has to work to earn her living and
she earns barely enough for necessi-
ties. So her life is monotonous. She
has little pleasure. And she doesn't
see much use in living, when life Is
lived this way.
She is not alone in her experience
There are thousands and thousands of
women the country over heroically liv-
ing just such gray, monotOnous lives.
Some are living even harder than this
girls. One woman who entered a de-
partment store as a girl of 20, for 30
Years cared for an invalid father in adj
dition to her store duties. Night and
morning she ministered to him, and
when he passed on to the other life,
she was a silver-hai~ed woman. All
her youth went TO this grinding toll.
Her days, from the point of view OF
work, were the grayest of the gray;
for her salary was slender, and care
and anxiety u do her work SO as
to hold her position and TO make ends
meet were her companions day and
night.
What is the purpose Of such lives?
Is it INTENDED that these, or any other
life, shall be gray? l think not. l
think these lives are gray, because
those who live them do INST know of
the sun that is shining, or the light
that is ready to irradiate them, #
they will Open the windows of their
soul and let it in.
There seems no purpose in such
life, because there is no understand
ing of life. This girl and other girls
like her often do not think. They
rebel Their minds ave filled with re-
belion against the monotony and
grayness of their existence, instead
of their probing deeply to see if there
is not reason for it, a reason which
if understood would food their eyes
with gold.
One of the purposes of life is sure
development, not getting ahead sole
lp in material things, but getting ahead
in soul things. We must find ourselves
our real self; and We can only do this
by recognizing the lower and leaving
it behind. And to come to know our
selves as a spiritual being with the
Heritage of Immortality and perfection
is to know a JOY whose keenness is
beyond anything the world can offer
And this joy, this knowledge is the
light which is ready to enter our lives
and dispense forever its graveness, if |
We will let it in. No girl will have
gray days if she will come to this I'M
derstanding of life. For when she
once knows herself as a perfect spirit
ual being. a manifestation and a re-
Election of the infinite and divine, life
becomes a joyous thing. Gray turns
to gold.
And sometimes it is this very gray
ness and mOnotOny that We come to
this knowledge. The humdrum duties
that prick and annoy us show us the
of letting selfishness
and temper and Indifference rule us,
and the beauty of rising above them,
of finding the better self that is above
them, of letting this better self devol-
op, or really of letting ourselves come
into our own-the kingdom of under
standing and of enjoyment of all that
is ours.
And the one who will diligently
seek will find. No longer should ones
mind and time be filled with rebellion.
Rather set the mind upon discover
ing the purpose. Seek me light. For
the light is there ready 20 turn gray
days to gold.