Chapter 19
Dr P began this chapter talking about how she felt she never had the stick-to-it-ness that women who “made a difference” had. She observed that women who made a difference always stuck with the task they were given no matter what. No matter that it might have seemed impossible or had constant obstacles.
This was when I realized that throughout most of this book I kept finding all the things that I did not have that I would need to be successful at life, but suddenly I have something. I have something that Dr P once felt that she needed. I have stick-to-it-ness. I have the strength and perseverance to keep going even when things get hard. What an amazing realization. I have one of the basic commodities that allows someone to be a person who “matters”. Just imagine what I could do if I felt the overwhelming love of God for His creation with the strength and perseverance of someone who continues, no matter what.
Dr P then talks about how the qualities needed to be a person who makes a difference emerge as we began to make our difference. It is like the fruit of the Spirit. We don't have to TRY and reach for it, we don't have to struggle to find it, it will just come as a result of stepping into the role we choose to step into.
So, the reference here is that if I just start to reach out to “make a difference” then the “love” that I need to feel with come.
Dr P also states that we should never be afraid to feel inadequate. God says in the Bible that it is when we we are at our weakest that He is the strongest. She also reminds us that when we do make a profound difference it is not because of what we have done, but because of the gift He placed in us. THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!! It is NEVER what we do that makes a difference, it is the Holy Spirit in us, the gifts given to us by GOD to minister to the world.
The next thing that jumps out at me is when Dr P talkes about a dream where a woman walks up to Jesus and He asks her what she wants and she replies peace, joy, happiness, and the freedom from fear; not only for herself, but for the whole world. Jesus looks at her in the dream, smiles and says, “I think you misunderstand me. We don't sell fruits, only seeds.” This is what making a difference is really all about. We cannot create the fruits of our gifts, we can only plant the seeds. If we are very lucky, we may be allowed to see some of the harvest that comes from the seeds we planted, but even if we never see them, they are there. Because WE did not make the difference, we just shared the gift God gave to us and HE will make the difference.
Therefore, our whole purpose in life, the total focus of everything we do and say, is to become as Christlike as possible. The qualities that will produce fruit in our lives and the lives of those around us regardless of what “path” we walk will grow independently of anything we do or do not do BECAUSE it does not depend on us.
This is my answer to seeking compassion for others and on how to love. God will have these things “bloom” in my life without my having to work for it. All. ALL I have to do is seek after God with all my heart and everything else will come to me.
Chapter 20
Dr P opens this chapter by talking about how Cinderella's real job was to sit around and wait. She was not a participant in her own life. Then she talks about how an elementary school class puts on a play about Cinderella and one little boy, who was... different... and how he decided that he would be a pig in the play who followed Cinderella everywhere she went with no words only mimicked everything she did. When the teacher told him there was no pig in Cinderella, the small boy replied, “Well there is now.” At the end of the play, Norman, the pig, barked once and then received a standing ovation. It turns out that Norman, the pig, WAS the Cinderella in the play.
Well, there is now. What a life changing statement. After my heart attack I began to process my life and found that I have been “sitting” on so much of WHO I am because I didn't want to take a chance on offending anyone by being who I really am. Because I have been rejected so often by just exposing a piece of myself. What would happen if I truly exposed myself. But after my heart attack I found that I am no longer afraid of being who I really am.
I am different. I march to the beat of a far different drum and there will be an overabundance of people in my life who cannot accept that, but it is time for me to say, Well there is now!!
Dr P also asks if we identify more with Norman, the pig, or the teacher who made a difference by allowing this little boy to be himself and rise to shine. We are both. Sometimes we are the little “different” Cinderella wanting to make a difference in our lives that requires that we say... “Well there is now!!”. And sometimes we are the teacher providing the permission and encouragement and support for someone else to be Cinderella and change their world by saying.. “Well there is now.”
All of us have a Cinderella moment in our lives at some point or another. But it is time to get up off of our hearth, waiting passively for our “prince” to come an rescue us from a life of not making a difference. It is time to recast ourselves as the barking pig and become a participant in our story. As a side note, it is also well established that it is usually when we are in the middle of living that our “prince” whatever that may be, will find us.
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