I am always amazed at how easily we accept outward appearances as valid identifiers of a person’s inner heart. We somehow as humans naturally equate “neat” with “together”, “fancy” with “of value” or “manicured” as “well done”. The truth is most visuals are deceiving whether in business or as a tool to evaluate people.
There are many walks I walk as a work from home business owner and very often I am surprised after working with a firm long enough to know some of their inner workings that may not be apparent from the outset. Very often what impressed me when I took them on as a client either changes or broadens as I become more involved with their company. Appearances won’t hold up long when appropriate depth is used to truly evaluate a person or a situation.
Success has several meaningful factors, but one of the clearest that is also most consistent in business, is what is on the outside advertising has to be how the inside operates. Companies that hinge themselves on being honest, dependendable, or reliable….must be…well…honest, dependable and reliable….integrity counts…
In couple hood, Les and I encounter many couples and families in our ministry to step and blended families in which looks are very often deceiving. The stigma of a failed marriage or marriages seems often to be attempted to be covered up in “stability” looks, behavior,affluence and efforts to be anything but a blended or step family. So many times as we work with a group, eventually the statement comes up…”How could you possibly know what we’re going through….you and Les have it together…you’ve never been through what we’re facing”
and then I simply smile….
for the truth is, I have had not one, but two divorces in my past. I have been left for someone else. I have failed so miserably as a wife than not one, but two men found it preferable to go elsewhere than to return home, the woman at the well’s desire to get water at a time of day when no one else would be there I completely understand……I have walked the road as a single woman, the first divorce in my entire extended family…..a very public failure….a very public divorce. A second time embarassed beyond measure as a twice divorced woman with two small children (I’m talking 19 days and 3 years old folks) and faced being a teacher in a community where divorce was frowned upon and seen as not an acceptable situation for “their” teaching staff.
and I know all too well how much I would like to have a life eraser that simply erases the ugly parts of my imperfections, mistakes, and misfortunes….erase entire parts of my life history….
but the truth is God is God of that part of my life too. He took those mistakes, failures, and horrible choices and forgave me of them….God restored my heart and pieced it back together….he later sent a man of integrity to shield my heart and protect it for the rest of my life….to love my children as his own and to provide two more children for me to love of his own…
“Yes, I can see where you’re coming from thinking no one could possibly understand……but you see….I’ve been there too…..twice….”
and through tear stained eyes….after hours of hearing my husband and I speak on family, on restoration, of healing and of forgivenss….very often I realize that that moment indeed is exactly why God allowed me to have such a past…so that I could love and completely have mercy others who are facing their present from a position that is not far removed from my own past…
God is God and I am so beyond thankful for His heart and His love!
