GrowHoly.com

My friend told me her story about her life purpose and it was so amazing that I would like to share it here with you.

When she was a child, she had a dream. In that dream she was in a big church and suddenly Jesus came to her. He asked her to help him ring the bell of that church. So she climbed up, jumped on the bell and she was swinging on it – and it was a lovely experience – it was no work, it was more like playing. Just swinging – and the bell was ringing.

Now my friend had a feeling that this dream was special, she remembered it and she thought what it could be a sign of. And she couldn’t find the answer for years.

Last year, she is 29 now, she went to Medugorje, a place which has become well known in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and the world, because of six young people who claim to have seen visions of the Madonna. She went there for a few days’ retreat.

During that time there was rich spiritual program. One evening young people played a little drama: it was a story of Jesus being crucified and risen from the dead. A lovely piece, the guys did really well – and at the end, at the moment when Jesus rose from the tomb, there came loud ringing of the bells.

And these bells were actually there – and who was ringing them? Little angels who were swinging on them – in the same way as my friend did in her dream! It was great to realise that she is the one who should go and proclaim the happy news – that Jesus is risen!

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Loving means to ‘do everything in my power to help others towards real happiness‘. Wow. Since I read this in the Road of Hope (by Nguyen Van Thuan), I cannot stop thinking about it.

So I shouldn’t love people because I want to be happy myself (which I eventually will be, anyway), but the main motivation should be to make them happy. To make them really HAPPY.

I want completely to forget about myself and start loving people. And I don’t need to join a charity, or to go into streets and feed homeless people; I just start here where I am, in the office with my colleagues, in my house with my housemates, with my husband. Make them all happy.

Yet I know that it’s not in my power to “save” them or to make them fulfilled – whatever. I am nobody, I am very weak and I want to realise this as well. So while I am trying to help them towards their happiness, I cannot guarantee that they will become happy after they meet me. And I have no recipe for making others happy – I am not their savior, there is somebody Else, much greater than myself, who can save them and who can make them really hbappy.

So with this in mind, now I can approach people only in a very attentive way, listening to them, asking them questions, and trying to understand them. Trying to find out what matters to them, what issues they are facing, what they want – and, what will make them happy.

And happy – hey, this doesn’t mean that I will spoil them, or give them things they long for without distinguishing what could help them and what could not. Sometimes I will have to be “cruel” with them, refusing to follow their wishes, if they would not make them happy.

Then there’s the question – what does it mean to be really happy? And there I am lost again, not knowing the answer… It definitely is individual – each person is happy slightly differently. I am happy when I can see that I am growing towards being a better person. But is this right? What about relationships with others?

How about you, what does it mean to you to be happy? So what can I do to make you really happy? What can I do to make people I meet every day really happy? What is my little role in their happiness?

I need to forget about myself and start loving people – trying to understand them and help them be really happy.

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If you set on the journey of holiness, you will probably soon discover that it’s expected of you to simply do your duties, maybe also sacrifice something, get rid of your “wrong” habits, pray several times a day (or, even better, pray all the time) and probably even more will be required from you.

Yet still, when you look at it, it’s all just some small things, such as be nice to your house mates, tidy up after yourself; when you wake up, spend 5 mins in prayer… And, when coming from the love of Jesus, it should be even easier.

Following this road, you will probably change. You will help people around you, you will suddenly be very nice and tidy etc. Your mates might start asking you whether you are ok, whether you are not sick or something. As you hadn’t been like this before.

I think this is ok, and it shouldn’t be a real problem – soon will they get used to the “new you” and you will get by easily. They will be also happy when they realise that you are taking it seriously and that you want to be a better man or woman.

The danger might come when you suppress your own personality – who you really are – and try to behave like “a saint” – just sitting quietly in the corner, smiling all the time at everyone, closing yourself if your room in solitude, praying for hours, maybe even patronising those who don’t join you or those who are watching TV all the evening instead of “pondering the mysteries of redemption with you”…

Well, this is not a saint as I understand it. Be yourself. Don’t forget to give your whole self to God and when you come in front of Him, make sure that you are as you are. Use your own words. You even don’t have to call Him “Lord” – is it normal to your common daily language?

If you are a sprayer, use your own slang. If you are a father, talk to God as father – just as you are. If you are a doctor, tell Him about your patients (and here you can use your super high language, as He will surely understand you!), if you are a marketer, speak as you would normally (but don’t try to sell Him stuff).

And if you still feel like a child, talk to Him as a child and He will not laugh at you. He will just smile. And understand. And love.

When you are with your friends, be yourself again. Laugh with them, have fun, make jokes, go for a drink, dance with them. And above all, love them.

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I was looking for a motivation to pray regularly. And I couldn’t find it for long. Although I had many times experienced the touch of God you can sometimes feel during your quiet time…

Recently, I was thinking that maybe I should start with helping others – maybe do some voluntary work with the disabled or the elderly…

But then I came to realise that it’s quite difficult and maybe I could have not enough strength to help these people.

So where could I get that motivation to do ‘anything’ to help others?

Generally, I would do ‘anything’ for people I really love. I would do anything for myself, because I extremely love myself. And if I loved God even more than myself, if at all possible – what would I then be able to do?

So here we go, and I was trying to escape this for ages – I need to love God first. I need to make Him central in my life. I need to make Him my Life.

So how can I do it?

“If you want to love someone, you need to know them first.” So how would you get to know God?

Is there a better way than through prayer?

To sum up, here are the three steps to go:

1. Pray to get to know God; so that you can
2. Love God; so that you will be able to fully
3. Serve God in your neighbours.

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A typical reply to ‘How are you?’ in Africa is ‘I am well if you are well.’ Isn’t it a completely different philosophy from ours? We usually say: ‘I am well, thanks.’ or ‘Not too bad.’ Sometimes followed by the polite necessity ‘And you?’

But who does really care how you are? Who is really interested in how you feel, what you’ve been thinking about, how is life for you? Maybe your partner, parents and a few real friends.

So the reply ‘I am well if you are well’ moves us somewhere further – maybe you don’t care how I really am, but I am interested in how you are and you need to realise and feel how you are – and please, let me know so that I can share your feeling.

And there is another dimension to it – Africans tend to be more social as a community than ourselves. We are very individualistic, ‘If I am well, everything is ok‘. But they tend to depend on each other more – I won’t be happy unless you are happy as well.

From this point of view, let’s look at success. There is no sense in being successful if people around you are not successful as well. However, what I feel is happening in our days is, that I am somehow happy when others fail so that my success can stand out more. So somehow I am trying to make others unhappy or unsuccessful so that I can succeed easier.

But let’s think of our friends and all people around us as a community and that, eventually, if any of them is sick or unhappy, we all have somehow failed.

So from now on, I want to succeed only if people around me succeed and if they are happy. As success these days is understood more in those ‘hard data’ – money, career, performance…

When you get sick, you obtain a completely different outlook on life and suddenly you feel ashamed for the values you’ve had before. You don’t care about money any more, and your position at work has no meaning to you, either. You feel like you have been mad and senselessly running around to meet stupid deadlines.

When you are sick, everything pauses and you have time to look at life with different eyes, with different values – suddenly you see that there’s much more to it – even when you are just lying in bed all the time – and you realise the importance of relationships, purity, God…

Then, success is nothing and you don’t care any more. All you want, is peace and love.

So let’s all be well, let’s look at life from a different angle – we don’t have to get sick, but let’s live with values as if we were. What is success that we are chasing every day, forgetting about our health, family, God?

Let’s be well all together, not just myself and my family, but I am well if you are well.

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RELATIONSHIPS

• Are you too much dependent on few people – emotionally?
• Do you want everybody to admire you?
• Do you want to please everybody?

Listen more and be yourself!

WORK

• Do you want to be perfect?

Play more and be creative!

GOD

• Do you force yourself to pray and you are not successful?

Enjoy the prayer, meditate, go to church!

NATURE

• You love being in nature but don’t have enough time for it?

Go to the park every morning!

SPORT

• Are you lazy, especially after you’ve had a big dinner?
• Do you often overdo it?

Attend classes, enjoy it – no goals, no pressure!

SO WHY ALL THIS?

Because I really want to be:

• Healthy
• Strong
• Free – having lots of free time
• Fit & full of energy
• Slim & good-looking
• Smiling
• Humble
• Loving & understanding
• Having enough money to get by easily

So that I can help those who are suffering – and this is the only way I can really grow. I want to share their pain, I want to give them my smile.

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Recently I came across the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and I was quite surprised about what they were based on. Isn’t there anything like 12 Steps of Sinners Anonymous?

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

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There are people who have suffered a lot since their childhood. Recently I have listened to my friend’s story. When she was 6 months, her father died. Can you imagine the atmosphere she was growing in? Her Mum was struck with the death of her loved husband – it must have been very sad and dramatic.

When she got married again, their first son died soon after his birth. Another punch.

Later on, the new father started to hurt my friend – his step-daughter, telling her she was bad. So her self-confidence went down. When she grew older, she had a brilliant relationship with her boyfriend. After several years, she broke her leg. It was a complicated one, so she spent several months in hospital and then at home. In the meantime, the boyfriend left her.

I know her quite well, she is quite negative about everything, although she has her typical sense of humour, but you can see what she’s gone through. Many times was I telling her how life is beautiful and how you should smile and be grateful - but would I be like this if it all happened to me?

I fully admire anybody who went through any form of suffering. Be it my friend, or Jim, or anyone else, and it doesn’t really matter how they reacted to it - whether they were shouting, or crying, whether they were blaming others, or themselves… They went through bad times and now they are much wiser and richer, and stronger.

However, they will still suffer, as the memories remain. And they will be afraid. They will be worried about future and maybe never feel really safe.

I think, if anybody wants to grow, we need to suffer. And if we were lucky enough not to get seriously sick, or that nobody close died, or that we haven’t had an accident – we should participate on the suffering of others.

We cannot live a happy life and not look at the other side where people are suffering. Therefore we should visit people in hospitals, talk to the elderly who have nobody and just “waiting to die”, help those who have nothing to eat, smile at kids without parents… Don’t be afraid to get in touch with a real pain.

I believe this is the way of the real growth, the real “personal development”.

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He was wheelchairing through our stret. No legs, burnt skin on the face, around 50-year-old lonely man. Girls were running in front of him, laughing. A complete humiliation, total helplessness, one could cry.

But he kept rolling. God knows what was going on in his head.

I couldn’t watch any more. Passing by him on my bike as I was coming back from the gym, being young, fit, healthy and strong, I couldn’t resist the call inside: “You, do something!”

So I stopped, locked my bike to the nearest pole and followed him.

“How are you, can I help you?”

“Yes, PLEASE.” And an uncertain smile followed, not believing this is real.

It was Sunday, he was going to see the match in the Croke Park just round the corner, but for him it meant a long way where you are dependent on other people’s mercy. And they were nice – greeting us and asking “How are you?” as we were passing by.

And Jim was just sitting in the wheelchair (what else could he, poor, do?) and taking in all that was happening. God knows what was going on in his head. “Such a change.” They were laughing at him, and now here is somebody pulling his wheelchair and smiling, talking to him and being really interested in his past, present, and future.

He had a bike accident several years ago. So what?

Badly damaged, but the soul is still fresh. “You have to be happy,” he told me. “It’s very important that you are happy.” He wished me good health. Yes, but he also knows how to be happy without strength and fitness. And that’s what I admire.

Thank you Jim, hopefully we meet again, and enjoy your Sunday matches – you can do what you like despite you have no legs – and you are happy.

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Hunter: Spots new opportunities, has a vision in his mind, sets goals and he knows what he wants. He is a leader, is able to motivate people, gives them direction. However, he doesn’t like monotonous jobs where you have to work in detail. He is very smart, thinks outside the box.

Harvester: Well complements a hunter; he is more focused on small things, when he starts something, he always brings it to the end, is detail-oriented, well organised. Maybe doesn’t think outside the box but is great at keeping everything in order.

And the two work really well together – a leader needs a good manager who would implement his ideas, and put them into practice.

A harvester wouldn’t know the direction without a hunter, and if hunter didn’t have a harvester, all his great ideas would get nowhere.

So which one are you – a harvester, or a hunter? Which is your boss?

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