Things Happen

What was the worst experience of your life?  Do you recall the day?  Do remember the pain?  Will it ever lessen?  Will you ever forget?  Can good come from being hurt?    How did you get through the experience? 

Healing is a process.   Share your experiences with others.  Know the "you-felt-that-way-too" is the beginning of process. To heal your wound you must go heal someone else.

Dr. Kelvin Elko tells this story: 

One day a man fell down in a hole. As a doctor walked by, the man screamed up, "Hey, doctor! I fell in this hole. Can you help me?" The doctor wrote out a prescription and threw it down in the hole. Just then, a priest walked by. The man yelled up, "Hey Father! I fell in this hole. Can you help me?" The priest wrote out a prayer and threw it down into the hole. Then, his friend walked by. The man yelled, "Hey, Joe! I fell in this hole. Can you help me?" His friend jumped down in the hole. The man said, “Nice going, Joe. Now there are two of us here.” Joe said, "Yes, but I’ve been in this hole before. I know the way out."

Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) has had a 12-step plan for years.  AA pairs a recovering alcoholic with a sponsor to help coach demonstrate how they can overcome their addiction. The program has had incredible success. We have to know what it is like to go through something before we can really help another.

 

To be able to help others, we must talk about our experiences or "The Thing." “The Thing” ultimately affects all:  “The Cancer,” “The Divorce,” “The Addiction,” Now is the time to quit fighting up-stream like a salmon and to accept “The Thing” and to flow with it like a fish going with the stream. Ask yourself: "What did The Thing teach me?"

Ryan has lived with his disease from birth and at age 20 has begun to share with others his

Ryan Admires His Wash-Job

experiences. Ryan and a friend have created a Monday night class that is geared towards teaching others how to share their testimony.  Ryan has a story to tell and so do we.

This week, take your experiences and help someone else. Explain how they can be strong at the broken places. Go down in the holes of life for them. Show them the way to climb back out.

Every Day I Fight

Stuart Scott, a longtime anchor at ESPN, died January 4, but his voice is alive and crackling – raw, honest and ever unique – in the new book. In Every Day I Fight, a posthumous memoir, Scott and co-author Larry Platt offer a moving and inspiring account of battling a relentless opponent – a rare appendiceal cancer.

His swag as a reporter will forever be unmatched and he will be sorely missed. One thing is for certain, however, and that’s that his slogans and insightful quotes will always live on.

• When referring to someone playing at a high level with ease, but also, himself- “As cool as the other side of the pillow.”
• When a player was getting more rebounds than anyone else on the court, “They call him the Windex Man cause he’s always cleaning the glass.”
• When someone would begin to dominate a game, “Just call him butter ’cause he’s on a roll.”
• When someone would make a smart play, “Like gravy on a biscuit, it’s all good!”
• When someone would get ejected from a game, “You ain’t got to go home, but you got to get the heck up outta here.”
• On his fight with cancer, “This whole fight, this journey thing is not a solo venture. This is something that requires support.”
• On his biggest inspiration and reason for living, “The best thing I’ve ever done, the best thing I will ever do is be a dad to Taelor and Sydni. I can’t ever give up because I can’t leave my daughters. I love you girls more than I will ever be able to express. You are my heartbeat. I am standing on this stage tonight because of you.”
• On how to live life with cancer, “When you die, that does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and the manner in which you live.”
• On the only solution, “So live. Live. Fight like …. And when you get too tired to fight, lay down and rest and let somebody else fight for you.”

Below is Stuart Scott's acceptance speech at the ESPYs.

I wrote in another blog a few years ago about a young man who discovered lumps on his neck after a football game. At 18, Lance Brooks had developed Lymphoma.

All were surprised when former LHS student Lance Brooks made an unexpected appearance after undergoing surgery just that morning.  Lance has been in the hospital for many days pending a bone marrow transplant on May 3.  Lance's most recent Facebook post reads: "God has truly brought me a long way I have everything to be thankful for.  My journey is not over yet.  Transplant day is tomorrow."   Thank you Lance for a little "perspective." Please keep Lance and his family in your prayers.

Crenshaw County- Relay for Life 2012

Lance passed in September of 2012.

All families, in some way or another, have been affected by cancer. An opportunity to fight for them is fast approaching per Relay for Life.  Do all that  you can to support this fight.

Serve Others

Two weeks ago we spoke on charting our course toward wisdom by reading books and taking the counsel of wise friends.  The third manner of obtaining wisdom is through servings others.  

A wise man will cultivate a servant’s spirit, for that particular attribute attracts people like no other. 

Alfred Vanderbilt was from one of the wealthiest most prominent families in the world.  His father, Cornelius Vanderbilt, amassed a fortune in the shipping and railroad industries in the early nineteenth century.  Alfred insisted on beginning his business experience at the bottom as a clerk in one of his father’s offices.  All of Alfred’s siblings insisted on jobs in management.  The public respected and never forgot Alfred.   His father never forgot him either; each of Cornelius’s sons and daughters were willed $7 million, but Alfred received $76 million.  In his father’s mind, Alfred would steward the money with a servant’s spirit. 

Alfred’s last act in this world, was to tie life jackets to baskets for babies as the Lusitania sank.  Vanderbilt had promised the young mother of a small baby that he would locate an extra life vest for her.  Failing to do so, he offered her his own life vest, which he proceeded to even tie on to her himself since she was holding her infant child in her arms at the time. Though he owned many estates with swimming pools, he never learned to swim.  He was among the 1,198 passengers who did not survive the incident. His body was never recovered. Alfred maintained his servant’s spirit to the very end.

At age 32, Buckminister Fuller stood on the shores of Lake Michigan contemplating suicide.  His first child had died in 1922 from complications from polio and spinal meningitis just prior to her fourth birthday. He was penniless. He was discredited.  He was jobless.  He felt hopeless.  In an epiphany, he realized that his life did not belong to himself, but rather others.  He thought, if my life belongs not to myself but to others, then what can I do for others?  Through living a life of service, over the next 54 years, he was awarded 25 U.S patents, authored 28 books, and received 47 honorary doctorates.  

What can you do to begin or continue cultivating a servant’s spirit.  Can you volunteer at your local church or community center?  Can you visit the elderly at your local hospital?  Can you spend more time with your family? Can you schedule a call to a family member just to make him or her smile? Can you commit random acts of kindness such as paying for someone’s meal?

Today, carry someone’s bags, pour their coffee, open the door, and hold their chair.  Be an example and serve others. 

(Oh, and one last thought from Fuller that I found interesting).

Whoomp, There It Is!

Contrary to what I said last week in that today we would talk about serving others, we are going to be a little self-serving and discuss something that I personally need to hear….something we have discussed before….Lay off Offenses.  (Ouch!)

Career have fizzled. Marriages have ended. Friendships dissolved. Weekends ruined (ouch, again!)  All of this at the hands of one thing: offense. Secretly if not openly, in the hearts of most people resides a feeling that they have been cheated—by their spouse, friend, government, employer—you name it; people have been offended. Consider the energy it takes for the offended people to voice their outrage at being offended by others!  Consider the time spent by those that have to sit and listen.

Today, many people are offended first and find the reason second, and their anger publicly litters our lives (litter, litter, everywhere).  In the end there is no pay off except walking around bitter and eventually alone. This being offended has caused a huge decrease in the number of people who practice loyalty. Somehow these offended people feel they then have the right to be disloyal because they have been offended.

At the beginning of this new year, many set new goals.  No matter what your new goals are/were, if you are walking around offended and touchy, you will not achieve them (ouch, again). You will end up losing all your energy to pouting and self-pity, and you will deserve to lose your goals because you were offended. But being offended is arrogant because the offended make up in their heads—and in their speech—that they would never ever do that offense to another. Keep in mind while you are offended that you have done things, too, to offend, we all have, and we are to be forgiven by the way we forgive.

If you are offended today, you will initially find company. Scores of people would love to commiserate with you; you don’t have to leave your living room, but rather just turn on the television to the news programs that will convince you that your offended position is justified. We want to be offended so badly that we inadvertently pay these people millions to tell us creatively that being offended is not a waste but is justified and acceptable.

Don’t mix this being offended up with having boundaries. Remember that anger is something you have and use to establish limits. Specifically, if someone is walking all over you, then, when you speak up to stop them, speaking up is not being offended; that’s establishing limits. We all teach people how to treat us and need to establish limits. Establishing boundaries is not what we are talking about here, but rather immobilizing emotions that run amok, such as, "I’m offended, but I’m not sure why yet; give me a minute to justify my rage.”

 

How do we address such behavior? Talk to yourself and script your words. (I did this all the way into work this morning J).  My new script is, "Whoomp, there it is" (as we used to say back in the day). I don’t have to play the blame game, the ain’t-it-awful game, or the why-am-I-being-picked-on game. I just say, "There it is. I was told to expect offenses, I was told they come like the sun rising, and there it is." 

Today, be careful not to be offended and when you are say out loud, "Whoomp, there it is" and move one.