09/11/2026
What a fun two days! I had no idea what my biggest takeaway would be! I’m so thankful for average citizens!
I was never one to care about party stuff. I never thought it really mattered because I live in the middle of West Texas. But as I have learned about how our country works, how government works, I realized something. We need to start local. But guess who can help us work through those issues? People who know what’s going on at state. Guess how we work on things at state? Being connected to those who are working on nationwide stuff. As much as I care about Abilene, it is not an isolated community. We are connected.
Watching convention from home was interesting, but it never felt like it connected to me until now. Bring in person makes it real. Being in person helps you to see these are real people trying to do real things in real time. Are they perfect? No. Do I love everything they do? No. But are we all trying to work to be a part of something bigger than ourselves? Yes.
If you try to expect one person to fix our problems, you will be disappointed. I’m learning that one person should not have that much power in our country. It’s meant to be that way. If we don’t like what’s happened, it will take time to change things. That’s how our government works. It will take years. As much as it ticks me off that our city council has raised our taxes for over ten years, it doesn’t surprise me that after two years trying to work to fix it, we are making progress. This is part of the process, part of how we do it.
If I hadn’t started getting involved locally, I wouldn’t I have met others working hard to make a difference in our state. If I hadn’t connected with others in my state, then I wouldn’t have met others across the nation. But you know who I loved seeing the most? My friends who are in the thick of things working hard to get people like you and me involved so we can make the changes we truly want.
It amazes me to now recognize I have friends all across this nation who care about being used by God to make an impact in our community. It was also fun to see my fellow Abilenians! In all those people we still were able to run into each other. It makes our world seem a little smaller and our fight and little more worth it.
You have the power to make a difference. Those who want you to feel fear or like your voice doesn’t matter are people you should run away from. Those who tell you one person is the problem or one person is the answer is using you. You might not make the instant impact, but those who are willing to jump in, roll up your selves, and get to work will see how you have a lot more influence than you’ve been told you do!