Do You Say Yes to Life?

How do you make the right choices with your life?

How do you say yes to life? What gives you the courage to do the things you do with you life and gifts? Where does your passion align with a greater purpose?  It’s Easter Week and I’d like to share why I chose to allow another person help me choose my life purpose. It’s a complicated story, but it comes down to three people and three different leadership lessons I learned that directs my life every day.  I’m hoping by sharing these stories this week, it may help you find your way to a life you deserve, a life that provides you confidence in every aspect moving forward. This secret has helped me and many other men and women during the most challenging times in their lives. The first two people and their leadership lessons I talked about in the first part of this blog posted on Developing Serving Leaders at http://shar.es/dmTSP

The third person who taught me about Jesus was my mother. She was like no other person I’ve ever known.  She taught me how to share the spiritual part of the Lord. We would spend many hours talking about the lessons that Jesus taught. Somehow, she brought the stories to life for me growing up. To her, Jesus was still with us. She talked about Him in the present tense.  She talked about the nature of the Lord, not the Lord of the Bible, but of a Lord who was our friend. She had wanted to be a nun and loved to sing His praises. I’m told her voice could move the most hardened person. That was before the polio cost her voice and three years of her life in an iron lung. She spent time in contemplation and tried to discover what she truly believed. She felt that the polio had changed her both physically and spiritually.  If not for the polio, she would have never left the convent and I would most likely not be here.

She reminded me that God works in mysterious ways. She would hear voices in her head and found comfort in the Bible and her memories. She talked about being poor and all the challenges of growing up in an inner city neighborhood unaccepted by any community, a multi-racial child before it was acceptable, the racial taunts and the hatred that focused on her and her family.  It caused much pain and suffering for her and her sister Jean.  As she would say, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  She was a very strong woman with a very soft side when it came to Jesus. She gifted me with that way of seeing the Lord and she passed that on to me.

Most people think of me being a leader in the business community, an individual who has worked with many of the most influential people of our times.  How I got there and I how I earned their trust comes directly from my relationship with Jesus.  My understanding of Jesus has provided me with a bridge to many well-known individuals and allowed me to be a witness to many incredible events in my life.

The final lesson I learned from my mother was to say yes to life, yes to others in need, and yes that I, with Jesus’s guidance, am enough for anything that may happen while I’m here. This simple lesson has changed my life forever.  Now what does this mean to you?

Most people go through life feeling alone. They seek things that they hope complete them.  They want the things of life.  There is nothing wrong in wanting things, it’s part of our human nature. Because we want things, we strive to be more.  By being more, we’re often given more. It is a perpetual cycle. There is only one thing that keeps you satisfied. It is God.  You need no more than Him.

We just need to be reminded that we are enough as we are. We should remember we are loved.  We should remember that we are here for a very short time.  We should remember that the only thing that is forever is love. Spend time around hospices and nursing homes, and you realize nothing else but love survives.   My mother taught me Jesus is love.

Happy Easter to you and your family.