When it’s time for a chick to hatch, the difficulty of breaking out of its shell is how it develops the strength needed to survive. Eliminate the struggle, and it will likely die.
In the pursuit of happiness, challenges are a necessary part of the process for us, too. This is something that one of my readers/students Laurie understood well, as she shared her experiences with me. Maybe you can relate…
She wrote:
Leslie,
I would like to share some experiences that showed up in journaling this morning. These are about the laws and I thank you for the many ways you share them. I have tried to edit out the drama that does not apply for brevity, But this is a two-year story in the making.
I am doing your Miracles Made Simple program (a miracle in itself) and this week is on Adversity. I have to share my journey because this lesson is so perfectly timed:
Two and a half years ago my husband and I decided to purchase his uncle’s business in a smaller town in Arizona. July of 2021 I attended Genius Bootcamp in Phoenix/Mesa and was ready to make all our dreams come true! I had investors lined up and thought we were good to go. My husband left his job in Utah and started running the company in AZ. We rented our house in Utah to our children and we were on our way. I still worked at my position in Utah, traveled almost 100% of the time and would just sleep on the back deck of our former house when I was in Utah.
What happened is that we ran into roadblock after roadblock on completing our funding and closing on the business purchase. The time ran out, and the owner announced that he was not yet ready to sell the company. My husband kept working and making positive changes there.
Simultaneous to this my father was diagnosed with lung cancer and I was now close enough to drive him to his medical appointments. My employer reduced my travel and I worked remotely and drove 10 hours each trip to take dad to the doctors and for treatments. I was so angry that I had to deal with this situation, and kept thinking that if I was in Utah I wouldn’t have had to manage it. Hubby, accurately, pointed out that I would have been dealing with it from Utah, what a blessing that we were in Arizona.
I was still working full time and doing 3-4 trips to the doctor each week. It was physically grueling and it was a blessing to be able to serve my parents. During this process, my father let slip multiple lies and deceptions that he and my mother had been perpetuating for most of my life and that of my younger siblings.
Then things got dicey. Both of my parents contracted COVID and ended up in separate hospitals. Dad had been mom’s caregiver for the last 20+ years so there was so much coordination with my parents. My siblings would fly in and help for a week or a weekend which was a blessing beyond belief.
Dad was done and lost the fight to COVID, cancer and pneumonia that overtook his ravaged lungs. Miracles made it possible for 3 of the 6 siblings to be with him when he passed. Mom was still in rehabilitative care and needed to go into assisted living. Nothing had been set up or prepared for my parents’ passing or estate. We found an amazing assisted living home for mom. She hated it, but it was close and they provided excellent care! I don’t have words for how difficult this was. She would lie about her children, what was happening, who lived in the basement (there was no basement in this house) and every time she saw any of her children or grandchildren she would send us on a 1st-class one-way ticket to Guilt City.
I had nothing left, was exhausted, was managing more and deeper emotions than ever before. And there was still so much to do. I gave notice with my company, the other regional manager had quit and they thought I should be able to take on 20 apartment complexes in 12 states and still add more. I was done at the end of July 2022. I thought about doing real estate full time, but that was overwhelming and purchasing the business was not even on my radar…at all!
So I did what I always did, I got another job. Mom passed away the day I was to start my new position. The last twelve months has been about grieving, processing and forgiving.
Over and over in the last 2 years I would read your posts and I would remind myself of the laws. My “keep going” point was “if it is this bad, it will be that good”. It became my call to myself to keep me up and going.
Things would get better, by law they had to.
(Continued below…)
Related: I Can’t Sleep Video
(Continued)
Fast forward to July of 2023. I gave notice at the company I had just started with. I chose to take a few weeks off to be with my children and welcome a new grandbaby to our home then acquire a new position. Being with my children with no time constraints, phone calls that had to be returned etc. THAT is amazing! I purchased a beautiful custom container home to create another cash flow, but it seems that selling it is a better option, so that is in the works.
You would think that with all of the hard things I would not be surprised or concerned about more changes. And yet, I was shocked last week.
The business purchase has still been on the table, but the owner was not ready. It is so much more than just a good investment for us now. The owner has been unsure of what he wants the deal to look like, and only in the last few months even said he was thinking about selling it again. No new numbers or deal timelines.
My husband is brilliant in business and has led the growth from less than 3 million a year when he started 2 years ago, to 10 million in gross sales this year. He loves what he is doing! The company provides income for 33 people now. I stepped out of the deal when it changed and just let it be, there was no choice, no energy to manage one more thing. Now, it is back around and this is where the adversity continues and the lesson comes into play:
The owner had a massive health incident last week. He has had surgery, is still in ICU and has been sedated for most of the weekend. I had a brief few hours to sit and talk to him on Friday when he was cognizant. He wanted to talk about us purchasing the business and what the deal needs to look like. He talked to me about that instead of my husband who works for him.
He also disclosed that if he dies before he gets it all worked out it will be “a big mess”. This freaked me out! I had to ask my husband, what happens to us if he passes before he puts a plan in place for the business transfer? What do we need to plan on? Yup, the mind had to have answers. And my brilliant hubby had a couple of options that could work.
I have no idea how this will all work out, there are so many things that have to be corrected, done and fall into place. That said, this lesson in Miracles Made Simple regarding Adversity, reminded me that challenges are part of the process. The owner was not ready to sell and we were not ready to purchase two years ago.
We all needed seasoning. We are now spicy and no matter how this works out it will be ok. Employees will keep their income, contracts will be honored.
Maybe this all had to happen so that the owner would get serious about selling, about setting up his estate, updating his will etc. We are blessed beyond belief and have been inspired to make some estate planning changes also!
The reminder that Adversity is the blessing and part of the process has helped me to look at this from a completely different perspective. I am so grateful for this experience and all that has brought me to this point. Thank you for sharing the laws and staying in that game. I am grateful to my Father in Heaven for reminding me and providing a laboratory where I get to experience so much, in such a short period of time and get to learn the laws at a whole new level. Have a beautiful day!
Blessings to you!
Laurie
I responded:
Wow Laurie! I finally had some time to read through your experiences without distractions. I love what you have shared here. You are navigating it all with remarkable faith. You found gifts and blessings in the hardships, and it will be interesting to see how things unfold going forward. I hope you will keep me updated, and I hope you don’t mind if I share your story on my website? Let me know what you think. I could always update it again in the months or years to come.
Thank you for your email! Warmly, Leslie
Leslie,
Thank you for this very kind response. Life continues and it took me a minute to be OK with sharing this story, I almost did not send it in the first place. There are continued life lessons. Again, I am so grateful for the blessings of our Father in Heaven and learning to be more intentional in creating and receiving in this life. If you think my ongoing story would be helpful to others please feel free to share it.
Blessings to you,
Laurie
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One Response
Helpful indeed!!