As my first post on this particular blog, I give you heads up that I am a Christian, whose life can be messy. There may be some of you who don't care what's going on, in which case you're free to simply leave this page. Others may have shock, "UGH, did she really just say that!?" There may be some of you who think I'm embarrassing myself, but I am not embarrassed. In fact, for the first time ever I'm beginning to recognize a reason for everything that's happened in my life.
Let's just start with my last job. Who says posts have to be in the order sequence of events have occurred?
My last job was the most wonderful and most rewarding job I'd ever had, and despite my many attempts to connect with people, I still felt awkward and struggled to "fit in". Three months ago I made a decision to step outside myself and I asked God to help me see my job as something more. I asked to see it as a place with people who are just like me on the inside. They were more than just employees; they were real people, with real pain and real struggles and I knew if anyone could relate, it was me. So each day I got up with the plan to make just one person happy. I had no clue which person and I had even less of a clue what would make any of them happy, but I trusted God would guide me. Now, here's the thing...guidance isn't this massive explosion of lightning where God blacks out the sky, opens up the heavens and speaks in a loud land of oz voice. Well, not for me anyway. Guidance for me, is simply circumstances. If I'm at my desk and a young man of 20 says to me, "Did you know what you wanted to do with your life when you were 18, my family and friends tell me I'll never make it", that's pretty much a circumstance given by God to be a blessing in that man's life!
One day I'd make eye contact with someone I've never looked at before. The next day I'd smile at someone I'd never smiled at before. Then I'd make small talk with someone just because they were there. My biggest struggle with all of it is that I'm an extremist (still working on that). For me to notice someone's life changing, I expect fireworks and billboard signs. I mean, how else do you know what someone is feeling if you can't visibly see it right? But over and over I'm reminded that a simple smile, though seemingly small to me, could be as big as a billboard to someone else. It's still a challenging concept to grasp, but I know how I feel when I'm acknowledged so is it too far off to think someone else would feel the same way? For lack of sounding like the movie Blind Side, during those 3 months of hoping to change someone else's life, they changed mine!
These small attempts at making someone's day brighter, created a bond. You couldn't see it and they may not even feel it, but it's there. God was able to use me to plant seeds; seeds of hope, seeds of inspiration. In turn, I now have hope and I'm now inspired. I'm doing things I've always secretly wanted to, but never thought I could. Truth be told, I'm not even necessarily good at some of these things, but it does feel good just to do them (more on all of that later).
Someone once told me a story to help me see that the things I consider small, may be giant to someone else. They said what if there's someone in this world that's contemplating suicide? This person doesn't feel like they matter or that people would even notice if they were gone. They may be thinking, if they don't notice me while I'm here, why would it matter? As I'm walking down the street, or through a grocery store, or at the gas pump, I happen to make eye contact with someone. I take it one step further and simply smile. Or maybe I even go further and say, "How are you today?". That person smiles, their eyes light up. That person goes home.....and doesn't take their own life after all. Instead, they were noticed, acknowledged, spoken to, made to smile. That person now has a glimpse of hope and maybe they go on to help someone else by doing the same thing; smiling at someone or saying hello.
I want so desperately to hold on to that fact that something very small, can mean something very big to someone else. Even if I never get to see its effect, I want to hold on to the notion that God will take that little natural thing I've done, and add his "super" to create a supernatural outcome on someone else's life.
I encourage anyone reading this to make just one small step. Just a simple smile, or mere eye contact. When you see someone, imagine they are you...what would you want someone to do or say that would give you that extra push to keep going. You may very well be saving someone's life....
