I recently watched a TedTalk for the first time ever and it blew my mind…a lot. The Lord has been revealing my God given passions to me recently and one of them is hearing others stories. I love to hear them, I love to know them, and I love to have the opportunity to give them the space to share them. It builds a certain level of trust and allows me a space to see and understand the Lord’s heart for the person sharing. I’m also really passionate about this to ensure others that their story DOES matter and their life DOES too.
So here’s what a lollipop moment is; it’s a moment in time where you changed someone’s life and maybe you didn’t even know that you did. It’s a moment where you put someone else before yourself and you became a part of their story because of it. In today’s society, we as human beings put leaders on an almost unreachable pedestal. We are all capable of being leaders but we hide from the light by creating a shelter in the darkness.
I chose to take hold of my moments the past week by empowering others and giving them the space to share their story. I’ll share one of my favorite stories from the last week! Andrew and I were out in the community with our translators Dennis and Michael when we came to a shack with a man sitting outside. We asked if we could come talk and he gladly welcomed us to his porch. His name is Norman. Norman is among the thousands of men and women who live with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. We talked and he shared his story about the past few months. He talked about for the entire month of November he was in the hospital very very sick, he went on to share that he knew God loved him very much because he is alive and he is sitting here talking to us 2 months later.
Norman’s story got me thinking a lot about how many people share their story with others and include how much one person changed the course of their life and the likelihood that the “life changer” knows the impact of their words is very slim.
I’m writing this blog to encourage you to become a leader. Go and take action. Take ahold of your lollipop moment. Take the chance. You never know how many lives you’ll change.
This has been a life changing past week and God has been so kind to allow me to further see where I fit in his kingdom doing his will! Can’t wait to update y’all about that so soon!
