Attention Please

Isn't it typical of all of us. You go about your busy life day after day, and then something happens that stops you in your tracks, and you must evaluate where you are. These path altering moments are not lost on me!

I just experienced one last night. I was talking with a friend about a particular topic. To illustrate her point, she told me a story. The story ended tragically with a woman committing suicide over the recent holidays. At the end of the story, I realized I knew the woman she was referring to.

Three years ago, I started a business geared toward growth and discussion groups for women. Sandy, the woman in the tragic story above, was in my first group. She was very recently divorced and seeking to set herself on a positive, new path for her life. Her insights were really amazing, and though many of us were several years her junior she thoroughly enjoyed being together with us as we all sought growth together. Our group was inspiring, uplifting, encouraging, and honored each of us for who we are in our own unique situations.

Unfortunately, we moved and I needed to shift priorities to my family. The business naturally dissolved. Now, relocated and mostly settled, I have begun to slowly renew my business aspirations, or more accurately, the calling of my heart. I am a coach in training focusing on personal development and autism related projects. I have a particular interest in encouraging women and helping them move beyond the things that block them from living a full and satisfying life.

I am also a wife, a mother of two beautiful little boys (one with autism), and a follower of Christ, not necessarily in that order.

In following Christ, I have learned to listen to what my heart is saying to me in these path altering moments. I think of Sandy. I think how ironic and how sad that just three years ago she was committed to drawing wisdom out of her situation, to making something good out of her disappointments. But she succumbed to negativity, saddness, and perhaps someone else's definition of who she was. We were not intended to live like that.

Yes, Life, you have my attention.