FUNDED ON FAITH
November 1, 2020
I do not know about you, but there are days when I just want to scream! Sometimes I just feel “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” We all have reasons for feeling the way that we do. We very likely could be sick and tired of having to change our lifestyle to wear masks, not visit freely with our friends and family and all of the other changes we have had to make in our lives to survive in the “new normal.”
We all are entitled to our own pity parties, but we must move forward even when we do not know for sure what that means. During my short-lived pity parties, I force myself to reflect on my many past and current blessings and this restores my hope and trust for the future. We all can write long lists of past challenges that we would like to forget. However, we cannot forget that our past helped create who we are today and how we move forward. I do not like to recall looking into an almost empty refrigerator or pantry, picking up a wall mounted phone that had no dial tone, flipping on a light switch that wouldn’t turn on lights due to lack of electricity or checking my bank balance and wondering how I would get through the month. Being told I had cancer twice was not so shocking, but it didn’t feel great. The list of problems can be never ending.
More important than all the negative experiences are the good things that have happened and blessings that cause me to get over my pity party. I cannot explain how many times I have been blessed when I felt I was at the end of my rope. These experiences cause me to realize that I am totally “Funded on Faith” in all aspects of my life. Over the past several months, I have moved around the entire country rather freely (complying with all rules and regulations), interacting with a wide range of people. The somber looks on people’s faces at each location I visited confirmed my perception that there are moments when we lose hope for the future. My goal was to let people know that I care about them and that there is hope for the future. Despite social unrest, political battles, serious health challenges, financial challenges and personal relationship drama there is a positive future if we want one. I remind myself that many years ago the famous motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said “your attitude determines your altitude in life.”
Hope is not just an optimistic state of mind. Hope means that we have an expectation and with that expectation in our heart and mind we take action. Hope means that we want things or situations to change very much. According to the American Psychology Association, hope involves planning and motivation to get what we seek. I have learned over time that hope links our past experiences to our future outcomes. When I played trumpet many years ago, my teacher would say, “If you can whistle (I can barely whistle) or hum it, you can play it.” Without hope, there is depression or worse. Hope is that small ray of light that comes out of the clouds or that rainbow that promises us that better times are on the horizon. There were times when I had lost all hope but now I have a life full of hope. Keep the faith, do not forget to laugh and know that “with God and through God all things are possible.”
Written by KING AEROSPACE Founder, Jerry Allan King-Echevarria.