We all need inspiration to carry us through this new year and new decade. A friend shared this video, which uplifted me life like crazy. If you, like me, have already seen it, I highly recommend you watch it again. It’s provocative, humorous and it’s inspiring.
Today is a day for remembering our veterans. Yet we often exclude and even look with shame on those who take their own live. The following is a different take, a brief story which can save our own lives and that of our loved-ones.
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He was my cousin. He was my friend. He was a quiet and kind man, with an offbeat sense of humour.
He spoke with subdued meanness about the father he never knew. Perhaps that was a clue. Perhaps that was the beginning.
The last time I saw him, he had returned home from fighting America’s war In the land of Iraq. I asked him, “what are you going to do now that you are home”
He replied, “I want to go back and blow some brains out”
“You’re not serious,” I questioned, wondering if this was an ugly example of his warped sense of humour. He didn’t respond. I don’t think he smiled.
In search of a more loving mood, I change the conversation. But I could not find his smile. I could not find his love.
The day I heard of his fate, I realized I had been speaking to a ghost; for the cousin and friend I once knew never returned from Iraq.
With his wife and son away from home, he took a gun pointed it to his head and like he had spoken, blew his own brains out.
Now I say tearful thanks to him for bringing greater attention to the mental illness that comes from the many wars of our lives.
His broken life sheds light on the millions of mentally ill living with sicknesses our eyes cannot see, struggling to cope with the ravages of life.
As mental illness spreads like a virus, we urgently see the need to learn how to love and how to save another mind, another lost loved-one.
To all desolate war veterans driven to take their own life, thank you for your service. Thank God for your life.
It is hoped that this video will be an encouragement to you or someone you love at some point in your life. Having friends and family with or who died as a result of cancer or other diseases, and being a stroke survivor as well as currently experiencing eye disease, this is very real for me.
Recognize and conquer the fears that stops us.
Can you imagine a voice, without a body, speaking to you out of nowhere, not once but three separate times? That’s what happened to me the first year after my stroke. The voice, who I am sure was of God, said:
You are love
Share your story with the world
Believe
For a long time I thought that if I spoke too much about this, people would think I’m mad or just another religious fanatic. Plus, I thought, who am I to think God would speak to me. I couldn’t throw Him away, so I subconsciously decided to just bury him as a minor character in my story, Rising Like a Phoenix.
Without fully understanding why, I also had to bury the book until I could understand
and accept its true purpose. This happened just a few weeks ago, when the words in the adjoining poem came out of me. I knew then that for sure I had not written my story but His story.
He woke me up for the first time with the stroke. When I was in the hospital and overwhelmed with love, I was seeing him. I was seeing my true self. When I was helping other stroke survivors as well as other patients, I was being him (as shown by Jesus). I was being my true self.
I was being my God-self, which is our medicine for healing. This is our path, as believers, for achieving the purpose for which we came here. My journey and that of many others are his testimony to that truth.
I am writing a second edition of Rising Like a Phoenix, with a few modifications to better demonstrate this revelation. After this, I will get back to A Path to Success, which is all about how we can be Him, be ourselves, and find our success in life.
Thank you for joining me on this journey.
You get what you are aiming for. If you have no aim, and you are not aiming, you cannot complain when you do not get what you want. As Corinthians 9:26-27 says:
Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
The table of contents for the lesson on aiming is presented on the left. You can access this first lesson in the “A Path to Success” series here. It is about learning how to aim for the good we want. I still have some editing and refining to do. Nonetheless, I promised I would deliver something January, so here it is.
Below is the first part on the power of aiming based on Napoleon Hill’s research. The remainder of 12 page document is very practical and results oriented, based on my many years of corporate training. I would appreciate any feedback you may have.
A blessed new year to all!
Most of us have gotten so caught up in the negative thoughts of our minds that we stop ourselves from getting what we so desperately want. It’s 2016, and time we consciously join forces with the greatest power that exists, and achieve the good that beats relentlessly on our hearts.
With the guidance of God, I was able to develop the “A Path to Success” tool (shown below) for learning to overcome negativity and achieving the success we desire.
“A Path to Success,” is an acronym which helps us to create an unbreakable bond with the goodness within ourselves, the good people around us, and the good Spirit which leads us. The principles in this tool were inspired by my life experience, the proven laws of Napoleon Hill, and scripture.
I have learned that it is not enough to know these principle, it is only through effectively integrating them that we see their power to make actual changes in our lives. In other words, information without continued strategies for implementing, and actual implementation, is often useless. That is to say, knowing we must help others, how to do this, and actually doing it are very different things.
Throughout the months of 2016, I will not only share the “A Path to Success” principles but also provide the strategies and training for integrating them into our lives. We will begin this month with the letter “A,” aim for what your heart calls.
