The King of Virtues

“Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.” - Dag Hammarskjold

Coretta Scott King, the wife of the martyred civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., was a courageous and strong woman. To me she epitomized forgiveness. When I was living in Atlanta I had the opportunity to meet her and go on a private walking tour of her late husband’s museum. The thing that impressed me most was her ability to resist the hatred and negativity her personal experiences could have fomented in her heart and see how she became a positive force for the sake of the oppressed and down-trodden.

I have witnessed a lot of misery suffered by people who have been abused and hurt by the powers of this world. When we feel we have been cheated by life – we can make a choice either to allow ourselves to become bitter and withdrawn or we can decide to learn from the experience and become better as a result of putting it into our memory bank for future application.

At the age of 16 my parents were divorced and my world seemed to come apart at the seems. I was angry to think that I had been cheated out of my right to be happy. But this was not the end of my life as I supposed. It was merely a temporary detour that eventually helped me move in a very positive direction. Psychologists tell us that it is how we choose to interpret what happens in our life, more than the actual circumstances and experiences, which determines the impact they will have on us. Will our hurts make us bitter or better … we get to decide!

Here is my observation: It is the one who has been wronged who has all the power, not the one who does the wrong. And our power comes in the form of forgiveness. When we forgive we liberate ourselves to live our life more fully. Coretta Scott King discovered that truth early in her life and as a consequence was able to do no end of good for others.

“Forgiveness, in the hands of those who have been wronged, is one of the most powerful forces in the world.”

Believe In Me

“Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be.” – Karen Ravn

I have been blessed to be surrounded by many wonderful friends who can be brutally honest with me when needed. They tell me when I am on track and when I am not. When their feedback tells me I need a course correction, it is usually done in a positive way so I can receive it with benefit. I'm thankful for those kind of friends.

A good friend believes in you but doesn't only say what you want to hear. They are an encourager who shores you up when you are down and brings you down to earth when you are too high on yourself. A friend is a leveler.

My life has been riddled with great successes and sometimes even greater failures. The usual course of action is to hide the failure and publish the success, but as I grow older I am not inclined to do that so much. What I want most is to learn the valuable lessons embedded in my failures so I can become the person I am intended to be. I don't usually learn much from my success.

Failure is not fatal unless we run from it. Our success is far more likely to damage us because it can create an unreliable sense of importance that causes us to think more highly of our self than we ought. Success should never make us feel invincible because that is when we are most vulnerable. On the other hand, success can give us the confidence we need to attempt that which is beyond our immediate reach; it helps us believe in our self when no one else does.

I seem to have always had encouragers around me. When my life was the darkest, they gave me light. I want to do that for others too. I want to have the eyes to see the need in those around me and a tongue that will speak the words of life they need to hear. What a wonderful impact we could have if we valued others in that way.

I want to be a “Believer.”I need to believe in myself and to have others believe in me too. I cannot ever give up on myself and hope those around me never will either. I want to believe in people who are failing; to believe they can succeed. I want to lift them up with my words of encouragement and show them that their failures will never be fatal if they use them wisely to build a foundation for their future success. I want them to realize that everything which comes into our life is useful if properly employed. I want to believe in others the way I need for them to believe in me.

“Encouragement is the mortar holding our failures and successes together like bricks so we can make something beautiful of our life.”