Have you ever doubted your purpose? Have you ever wondered if you should be doing something else? Maybe I’m not meant to be a leader after all…It seems like I’m just not progressing… maybe I should quit this and do something else. Let me assure you that if you choose to learn from every moment of your life, God will use it for His purpose when the time is right.
This past November, my best friend and her family experienced one of the worst tragedies there is…she lost her 3 month old baby boy – Johann. Johann & Lukas (2½ yrs old at the time) were in daycare and depending on the day, whoever got done with work earlier would pick up the boys and head home.
On this November evening, her husband, Kristian got there first. When he picked them up, Johann was crying. He got the boys home, plopped Lukas down in front of his favorite DVD and went to work to calm down Johann. He tried everything…fed him, changed diapers, etc. but nothing was working. In the middle of all of this he heard a big crash in the kitchen. When he went to see what happened, he discovered Lukas had pulled open the child-locked refrigerator and was pulling everything he could reach onto the floor…strawberries…yogurt, etc. And to add to the mess, their ever helpful golden retriever, Gus, was right by his side licking up everything he could get his tongue on. For those of you who are parents, I’m sure you can relate to walking into a similarly chaotic situation a time or two.
So with the baby on one shoulder, he squatted down to move Lukas and Gus away from the refrigerator and somewhere in the process he lost his balance, slipped on the big old mess on their terracotta kitchen floor and fell backwards. When he got up he found that Johann was non-responsive and so he called 911.
Fast forward 2 days when I arrived in San Francisco. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing there, Jen had plenty of friends and family all around her but I felt this undeniable nudge to go. Maybe I was there to help out with watching Lukas so they could really focus on Johann. By this point, brain surgery was performed on Johann in an effort to relieve the pressure in his brain and Jen & Kristian were basically living at the hospital. When my plane landed, I called Jen’s brother and asked if I should head to the house or the hospital and his response was…come to the hospital… I gotta go… they’re arresting Kristian!. What?! At this point I didn’t even know what had happened, just that there was an accident and that Johann had come out of brain surgery.
By the next morning we knew more. Kristian was being accused of child abuse and this controversial thing called Shaken Baby Syndrome. They were accusing him of intentionally harming his child and in the next few days that accusation would become murder. You can only imagine how horrific it must be to lose a child, but in the process to also be wrongly accused of being the cause of that death was beyond comprehension.
Within the 10 days that I was there in San Francisco I became extremely aware that EVERY talent and skill I had ever learned both in Event Management and Mary Kay would be used for good. I was in that place at that time for a specific purpose.
Step 1 – find the best criminal lawyer out there and get Kristian out of jail asap! Have you ever tried to find a lawyer before? Don’t answer that. I hadn’t. None of us knew the first thing about how to choose one, where to find them or even how the process of bail worked. It’s funny, when you have a reason “why”, you do whatever it takes to learn everything you can in a short period of time. By the end of the day, we found our lawyer…which is an entire story in itself, but every people & question asking skill I had learned in Mary Kay was put to use that day.
Step 2 – get him out of jail! Bail was set at $2 million. Yes you did read that correctly! The goal was 2-fold. Get that bail reduced and start collecting money to get him out. To get the bail reduced, I sent out an email blast to their friends & family explaining that we needed letters vouching for his character ASAP. Within 24 hours I received over 100 amazing letters from friends and family from literally around the world. One of the requirements of the letters was to share who they are to Kristian and what they do. Letter after letter was signed by Vice President of this and VP of that. As we read through them I asked Jen if she realized the caliber of friends that they keep and she had no idea. You’ve heard me say you become like the people you hang around most. The company you keep is a strong indication of the person you are.
Within 48 hours, we raised over a million dollars in cash and another million dollars in property was offered up. I’m talking about people just wiring over money with no questions asked. I was in complete awe. Bail was reduced to $750,000 – still a sizeable amount of money to come up with by any standard. What does it say about a person when people start wiring over that kind of cash? You see, when trouble or opportunity comes knocking on your door, it’s too late to prepare or change who you are. Your character is not created in times of trouble…it’s revealed.
After 6 days, he was bailed out of jail. Today, we are still waiting for trial. It probably won’t be until 2012 – it’s unbelievable. Kristian has not been allowed home since November so they are living separately, and they’ve had to sell their house. There’s so much more to the story than I have shared here, but here’s what I want you to know for today’s lesson.
Had I not walked out my path and become successful in Event Management, I would not have known how to pull together the details that I did over those 10 days. Had I not walked out my path in Mary Kay in becoming a director, I would not have been exposed to the amazing thinking and leadership skills that I needed to call upon over those 10 days. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t arrived and there are still many gifts in my future that I have yet to tap. But what I want you to know is that if you don’t walk out your path, some purpose or gift that was meant for you may not happen. Where will your talents and skills be needed? Which women will not have you as their leader if you don’t continue to walk out and reach your victories this year? You are where you are supposed to be at this point in time. If you aren’t where you want to be yet, maybe there’s still something else you’re supposed to learn. Keep your eyes and your heart open to learn every lesson presented to you and then keep your eyes & heart open for every opportunity to apply what you learn.
I mentioned yesterday that I now have this burning desire to create an extra bank account of $250,000 within the next 5 years. The amount of money that Kristian’s friends were wiring over was $250,000… one after the other. While this time I was called upon to use the gifts, talents & skills that I have learned along the way, I realized that had I been called upon to provide financial assistance, I would not have been able to provide that gift. That burning desire to have the choice to provide financial assistance to anyone I love in the future is my reason why today. I can’t possibly know what the future holds, I only know that when trouble and/or opportunity arises someday, I want to be ready. I want to have peace in my heart to know that if that need arises, I won’t only have skills and talents to provide, I’ll also have financial resources to call upon for any of you.
You are exactly where you are supposed to be – embrace it.
No comments:
Post a Comment