Believe in a future by creating it first
1. What is your leadership challenge at work?
Knowing that leaders do there best work just above the appropriately challenged level:
What is the challenge level of your associates?
What is the challenge level of the organization?
2. What is your plan for dealing with challenging people in your organization?
The key to an organizations future is their ability to attract and keep fantastic people. The same is true on the other end of the spectrum; an organizations future also depends on letting people go that need to be let go.
If you don’t deal with people that have a bad attitude, you will discourage and defeat your fantastic people. You have to deal with challenging people quickly.
Challenging people, deep down, are not happy people. When you have these tough conversations many times they will come back and thank you later.
3. Are you naming, facing and resolving the problems that exist in your organization?
Ideas and programs will only last so long. Everything has a life cycle. The things that are booming and that have momentum now will eventually decorate and tank, becoming a problem that will need to be faced. They key is to reinvent before something tanks.
4. When is the last time you re-examined the core of what your organization is all about?
5. Have you had your leadership bell rung recently?
It has been quite some time since I wrote about Josiah’s progress. God continues to do great and mighty things through Josiah’s recovery. I still will weep and just stand in awe as I look at Josiah and see him now compared to what I saw the first night at the hospital. Maybe I am a wimp for being so emotional about it, but I am humbled and in awe of not only how God made the body to heal, but also in how God chose to spare Josiah’s life and heal him.
Medically speaking, he is doing great. We had our last visit to Ann Arbor last week. They said that his facial nerves will continue to heal and they really do not think he needs to come back. We visit Mary Free Bed next month, and hopefully he will be released there as well!
He graduated and started back at his job all in the same week of June. He just recently got his full-time work schedule back too! We have filled out all of his paperwork for college and are shooting for attending Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Mo this January. He has a drive and passion for youth, and will be pursuing that in school.
We are in the process of getting drivers rehab started so that he can drive again. He is SO anxious to get a car and start driving again. More anxious than I am for him to drive, that is for sure!
Once again, I would have never chosen this path for our family, but the last 8 months have been a time of growth, humility and a display of God’s grace that I would not want any of us to have missed. Josiah will carry the marks of God’s grace the rest of his life through the scars that are left on his body. I pray they will remind him daily that God loves him and has a great plan and purpose for his life. God has a plan and a purpose for all of us. You may feel insignificant, unloved or without direction, but God, by His love, mercy and grace does have a purpose for you. Seek Him and you will find all you are looking for.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 - God told me, “My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.” Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.”
22 years! That seemed so far away the day that we said “I do.” But here it is, 22 years later and it seems like we are just getting started on the best days of our lives. She constantly makes me smile. She makes me a better man. I love you Jennifer!
Proverbs 5:18 “…may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.”
We are so blessed! I realize that most of my blog posts over the last 6 months have been very personal. It has been a record of the journey that our family has walked with Josiah due to his accident. We have not liked every minute of it. In fact, there were moments that I really did not know how I would make it another minute, let alone make it to the point where we would see the things he has accomplished.
Yesterday, I blogged that he completed a 5k (his first by the way!). Today, he crossed another finish line… He graduated. I am proud, humbled, filled with joy and grateful to my God that He allowed Josiah to heal so well. I am confident that Josiah’s future is one of huge influence and impact in the lives of others. His story is one of being a miracle of God.
I ran a 5k today. It is not my first time, and it will not be my last. I always enjoy running, but today was a special one. I got to run it with my dad, which is way cool that we can do that together. But I also got to run it it with Josiah. He crossed the finish line, and I wept. This boy has come so far in 6 months. He crosses another line tomorrow, and I will blog about that too. But for now, here are a few pics from today!
My wife and daughter took the pics. They did good!
Prov. 23:24 “The father of a righteous child has great joy; a man who fathers a wise son rejoices in him.”
The last 18 months have been a season of more struggles than my wife and I have seen in our previous 21 years of marriage. Not struggles in our marriage, mind you, but things like the death of a close family member, failing marriages in the family, family “issues” that seem to creep up on a regular basis and then of course, our son’s accident in December. We have never experienced so much pain, sadness and frustration as we have in the last 18 months.
Now, I do not write that because I want anyone’s pity. I don’t. In fact, for the last 20+ years of my life we have been fairly sheltered from having to deal with these types of things. So, starting with getting the word that we were being laid off, we have experienced things that I never thought we would have to go through. I have never struggled to have a job. Since we were married, we have never had to live with anyone else. We have not had a lot of death or divorce to deal with in our families and we certainly have never had a child almost die in a car accident.
There have undoubtedly been moments that I have asked God “Why?” “Why do I have to go through all of this? Why can’t I find a church to pastor, why can’t I do this or that? Why is my son having to go through all of this pain?” Those are all questions that I wanted answers to. Those are questions that we all would want answers to. I believe God knows that we want those answers. I was sitting in the hospital room watching Josiah sleep one night, just thinking and being quiet before God when I got an answer.
“Why not you, Jason?” And that was it. No other answers. Nothing more specific. Just, “Why not you?”
I thought about that for several days. I never expected to be immune for bad things in life. I never held to the thinking that if I was a good and performed for God that I would somehow have a magical life. But, I also never expected these things to “happen to me.”
We have learned much over the last several months. Though many of the situations we have faced are not pleasant, we have been able to walk through them, day by day, knowing that God was in control; knowing that He has a purpose and a plan for everything. I may not know all of the “why” surrounding these struggles but I do know that through everything that God says “why not you, Jason?” that He will use it to make His name famous. He will use my struggle to allow me to be more compassionate, more loving and to be able to help others because of what we have faced. I am thankful for that.
Just this morning, I read Romans 8:35:
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?”
No matter what we face, we are not separated from the love of God. In fact, our struggles make God’s love more real and evident. Verse 37 goes on to say:
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
I am a conqueror because of the love of God. His plans and purposes advance when I ask “why not me” and I lean in to Him, and then reach out to others.
Today we had a follow-up appointment at the University of Michigan with Josiah. The doctors here have been looking at his facial paralysis over the last few months and tracking his progress. His nerves had already started growing back together. We knew that, as we could see his smile coming back. But today we received some great news! They informed us after the testing that his nerves had made significant progress, that there would definitely be no surgery needed and that he would not even have to go through this procedure again (sticking needles in his face to test the nerves). He was thrilled about that! He still has to come back to Ann Arbor one more time for a hearing test and check up. And he has at least one follow-up visit at Mary Free Bed and with the eye doctor, as well as a bit of therapy to complete, but other than those visits, we think he may actually be done seeing doctors for the near future! God has continued to pour his love, grace and mercy on us in regards to Josiah and his health! We are so grateful for all that He has done! We appreciate all the prayers, kind words and notes over the last several months. Please continue to pray for the following specific things:
There are no words to describe the wonder, awe and humility that we feel at God’s goodness, comfort and providence in our lives. It has been an amazing road that we have walked the last few months. We look forward to seeing what God has next for Josiah and our family!
Ephesians 3:14-19
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Here is an update on Josiah as of Monday, March 21st.
We still have some specific requests that we are praying for and would be grateful if you would join us.
1 Timothy 1:14 “The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”
