IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU...

Four words that changed my life. First sentence in Rick Warren's #1 Best Seller "The Purpose Driven Life." I had to put the book down after that sentence--and I put it down for quite sometime. I cried like a baby. A tinch dramatic--but I did. My answer to all that I was searching for at that time was in that one small sentence.

In a society centered on "me," this just does not register. Surely, "The Purpose Driven Life" must be about ME obtaining MY goals--surely the pages of this book must be laced with things I should do for ME. Not at all! It "ain't 'bout you." It is about that person sitting next to you --on your right over there--oh and that one that is standing in front of you ---you know the one you just can't stand to be around.

These four words brought full circle my hurts, my anguish and my pain...pain lavished upon me at the hands of others--others quite close to me. You never, ever sometimes know the precise reason God placed someone in your life. I have come to realize that I don't know --nor should I why God put someone right smack dab in my pathway because it is "NOT ABOUT ME." My penchant for organizing, my eye for detail, my keen discerning spirit, my love for the mind and keeping it well lubed through eductation...not to mention my wit and oh boy, my sense of of laying it out straight--in love... are gifts not for hoarding or for personal gain --but for others -- you see... it is simply "Not about me..."

My hurts only hurt sooo bad because I personalized my gifts...made it about me. When I helped others and still got chewed up and spat out...I decided to withhold all of the gifts that God blessed me with --Kept them locked up -- "Ain't nary a person gonna hurt me anymore. :)" -- I soon felt bottled up... limted...felt like I was pacing on a treadmill... stubborn, angry...not willing to share freely...shoot even broke...and I love a well endowed bank account. Me not giving of self... blocked all arteries...nothing going out... hence---nothing coming in...

I can't stop the hurt...but I can lessen the blow going foward, by knowing that I do what I do like I do it because I have been so richly blessed--and the one who blesses so amazingly has got a sistah's back... and front... and side...:) Yes, I am blessed to be a blessing. For the giver, it is not how it is received..but how it is given. For if I give it freely --even when spit is hurled--all will still be well for I am richly blessed because I now know and have the key to life...We are here for each other...pain (OUCH!) and all.

Oh how liberating it is to know that it is "NOT ABOUT ME!"