Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Your Crisis Can Give Birth to Your Opportunity


And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 

[Romans 8:28]



Crisis...

  • A time of intense difficulty, trouble, or a danger...
  • dramatic emotional or circumstantial upheaval in a person's life...
  • An emotionally stressful event or traumatic change in a person's life...

Unless you are here on Earth existing as the walking dead, you have surely experienced some type of crisis in your life.  And unfortunately due to the dismal economic state that our country has been in, some of us have commonly experienced a flood of crisis in just the past few years.
~you lost your job
~you experienced a marital separation or divorce
~you had a miscarriage or lost a child
~your car was repossessed
~you depleted your 401K (much too prematurely)
~your home is in foreclosure
~your "baby's daddy" got incarcerated
~you lost a parent
~you've been diagnosed with...


During a time of crisis we can tend to sink into a bed of depression, forget or doubt God's promises to us, hold tight to resentment and misplaced anger, and lose all hope for a brighter future that includes us in the picture.  We tend to pull away from those who are closest to us, and turn our back on the God who had been more than enough for us before.


And you know, to an extent and to a degree that's okay...it is normal...and as humans we may need to and will go through a "grieving" process (denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance).  BUT the imperative point here is for us to go through (not pit stop and stay) the process and to ultimately reach the point of acceptance...the point of being able to "count it all joy" (James 1:2)...the point where we rise up to move on and turn our dark situations...our crisis, into our opportunity!  It is time to get out of the bed, get out of our emotional pits, and take those lemons we were given, add a little water, add a little sugar, and make some sweet and refreshing lemonade!


I believe there have been at least two seasons in my life when a circumstantial upheaval/change gravely affected my day-to-day life and close relationships.  And surely as the sun does shine, you can believe I initially went through a dark emotional period...feeling confused, angry, resentful, completely dejected...times I really longed to leave this life on Earth, assuming that to escape this realm and my circumstances were more attractive and would save me from my pit of despair.  BUT, there finally came a time in both seasons where I was sick of myself, and was finally determined to move through the process to a stage of acceptance.  Instead of wallowing in the position that I was in, that I really could not simply get out of on my own, I focused my attention on something I could do.  During both of the times of crisis in my life, I decided to plunge myself into seeking God and pursuing His purpose for me.  And during one of those seasons, I turned my pain into my passion for writing (thus getting me where I am today...blogging daily to bring you encouragement).  I can surely say, it was during these times of crisis that I truly began to experience and understand who God was; they were times when my relationship with God grew like never before!  

In 1980, when Candice Lightner's 13-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver, she birthed an opportunity out of her crisis and pain...she founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), a non-profit organization that seeks to stop drunk driving, and support those affected by drunk driving.

When Nancy G. Brinker was about to lose her sister, Susan G. Komen, to breast cancer she promised her sister that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever. In her loss and life crisis, Ms. Brinker founded the Susan G. Komen Foundation: the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists, investing 1.5 billion to the cure since 1982.

Ladies, just like me, Candice Lightner, and Nancy Brinker, there are going to be times when our lives WILL hand us a basketful of sour lemons, putting our teeth on edge...

BUT how will we respond?  Will we press through to acceptance and make up the best darn batch of lemonade?...Will we let our crisis give birth to a great opportunity for us?...Or will we simply stay sucking on those sour lemons? 

In closing,  I leave you with these questions and an encouraging and touching story of a NJ woman who chose "lemonade"...she choose to give birth to her opportunity.  AND SO SHOULD YOU!!!


In 2009, faced with string of unforeseeable events, including a botched construction job on her home and the sudden closure of one of her talent agencies, Angela Logan, 55, of Teaneck, NJ was left struggling to pay her mortgage.  With foreclosure hanging in the balance, Ms. Logan, came up with the idea to sell her famously moist apple cakes, and set a goal to bake 100 cakes in 10 days to save her home.  In a matter of weeks, the effort became the mother of all bake sales, spawning media attention that spanned the globe.  In the blink of an eye, Ms. Logan had more than 600 orders in a matter of days for her "mortgage apple cakes",  she outgrew her home kitchen, was offered the use of an industrial kitchen at a local Hilton hotel, and now has built her own business which you can find at www.maccakes.com.

Angela Logan turned her "lemonade crisis" into mortgage cakes!


Candice Lightner turned her pain into MADD!


Nancy Brinker turned her loss into the Susan B. Komen Foundation!


I turned my handful of lemons into a closer, more deeper relationship with God and ultimately, Women of the Battlefield Ministries!

WHAT WILL YOU GIVE BIRTH TO?

MAKE LEMONADE!

Mad Luv~Teri

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