Today was another special opportunity in many ways. I had the pleasure to reconnect with an old friend I had not seen in over ten years, meet her family, speak at the church where her children go to pre-school, and go for a very scenic group ride along the beach. It cannot get any better than that.
There are not many times that I have had the opportunity to freely and openly share every aspect of my life experiences over the past few years. Most of my audiences are neither ready or prepared for me to share the faith and spiritual component of my experiences. I concentrate on keeping this aspect from my talks because it may not be appropriate or I don’t want anyone to tune me out when I share. When I have the opportunity to talk completely out in the open about my complete perspective of the entire 100Pedals lessons, I relish the moment.
My talk at the church was one of those amazingly free moments. It was gratifying, exhilarating, and exciting. I am grateful to have been given the ability to share my message, to have been given the words to share, and to have been blessed with the voice to deliver it. As the question and answer session was nearing its end, nothing was more powerful than the young man who attentively sat in the back of the room honestly and openly shared with the entire audience, “Thank you for what you said today. I am the addict in my family and I know what I have put my family through. Everything you have shared today was right on.”
Tears filled my eyes then as they do now as I share this story. This is the reason I have embraced the lessons and experiences of my transition through my personal adversities. We all struggle. We all battle. We all focus on being the best we can be and do the best that we can. Sometimes it seems like no matter what we do, something goes sour anyway. That is the story of life. There is no failure or fault in the adversity. There is no shame in the struggle.
Every one of us has the opportunity to embrace the challenge as a time to learn, grow, lead and educate. The struggle does not define us, how we use it to transform and mold us does.
