Consider a girl who wants love but doesn't know where to look. She wants to be close to someone but doesn't know how to trust. She becomes defiant, drifting, desperate and debilitated. Her family and friends want to be able to influence her but don't know how to go about it. The fact of the matter is we can't talk our way into influence.......we have to behave our way. Ever heard the saying, "Actions speak louder than words"? If we want to influence the people around us, our actions have to match our words. A perfect example of this would be Ghandi. Anything Ghandi ever thought, he said. Whatever Ghandi ever said, he did. One man who brought a country to its knees by his own example.
I once worked for a guy who used to tell me all the time, "Vanessa, nobody cares what you know until they know how much you care." Unless we are willing to build relationships by example, our influence will always be limited. It took me a long time to understand this. I went through a lot of frustrations and self-evaluations. Sometimes it's hard to look in the mirror and admit that maybe you were wrong or maybe you didn't handle a situation properly. Some people however, will always blame someone or something else for their lack of influence. They refuse to pay the price of change on which the "Holy Grail" of leadership rests.
Recently our community suffered a devastating lose. A friend of my daughters and a beautiful young girl took her own life. I can't imagine the pain that must have consumed this child or the version of reality that she lived on a day to day basis. I went to a Seventh Day Slumber concert a few months ago and was moved by the amount of teens who where truly hurting. When front man Joseph Rojas told his story and then asked the crowd how many of them had felt like or had attempted to take their own life hundreds of hands shot up. As a mother my heart broke in two and I wanted to take each any everyone of those teens home that night and show them that someone did care about them. As a parents, teachers and community leaders we truly need to re-evaluate our circle of influence among our kids.
“I understand what it means to hurt so badly that suicide seems like the only option,” says Rojas. “I know what it means to be abused, to be addicted, to feel abandoned and empty, hopeless and depressed, lost and confused. But I also understand what it means to be accepted by a King and loved by the creator of the universe. We are a generation who has no clue who we are. Our young people are searching for purpose, a reason to live."
I urge everyone to try to lead by example. Pay attention to what's going on in your communities and homes. Understand how you can use your influence to make a positive change in someones life. Most importantly, know that someone out there cares about you and has been through it too. You are not alone in this world.
Are you seeking answers in life? Are you hurting?
Are you facing a difficult situation?
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A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.
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