I have a friend I have never met in person, but I know her well; my heart recognizes hers. She is a fearless warrior at this moment for the animals in the zoo in her community. I can guarantee that there are people who wish she would just go away. They want her to quit speaking out via interviews and blogs and facebook and emails. But she won’t. She doesn’t generically wish for world peace and the betterment of all mankind, she’s put her laser focus on something that meant something to her and she is moving mountains, one thimble-full of dirt at a time.

She is my shero of the moment, stepping out of her comfort zone to do what she can to better the well-being of helpless creatures who are being removed from their mothers at a young age, enclosed in cages much to small for their created beings, and not allowed to live as naturally as possible. She walks her talk, puts her money and efforts where her mouth is, and is trying with all her might to live up to the promise God put into the heart of Romney Anne Speerschneider.

How in the hell can you not admire that? It is so easy to say that we wish for peace, yet not cultivate it in our own daily lives. We wish for an end to world hunger and refuse to give a dollar to the person holding a cardboard sign at the intersection. We judge others for the crime of lack of compassion and show none in our own homes to the ones we are supposed to love the most. We send $20 across the seas and ignore the soup kitchens in our own communities.

Why? Generic giving is great, but painless. We don’t have to really get involved, do we? If we throw our dollars WAAAYYY over there, then we won’t have to feel the personal pain of here. So what does it mean to have real gut courage and compassion?

Open your eyes. Look around you. What do you see? I guarantee there is something or someone right there that you can personally reach out and change, if only by your heartfelt need to show your love. Speak someone’s truth when they do not have the power.  Feed them when they cannot do it themselves. Give them some cash, or love, or a ride, or a direction. Anything as long as it’s a personal heart-felt effort. Let it be inconvenient. Feel the pinch of inadequacy when the world won’t change right now to support you. Be a hero/shero and go to bed at night knowing that no matter what the result~you did what your soul straight out told you to do because you have integrity of soul.

Romney is the bomb. Check out her facebook page Zoo World Is Too Small For Another Lonely Giraffe. Support her if you are led, or for crying out loud, support something else that speaks to you~ask your heart, and make it matter.