Wholly strange and new, I am fearfully and wonderfully made!

Wholly Strange and New by Bridget Pilloud



When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name;—— the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. - Ralph Waldo Emerson


Can you remember a moment in your life when you had life in yourself and it was wholly strange and new? Can you remember the moment when you stopped walking a path of someone else, and started cutting your own?


Write about that moment. And if you haven’t experienced it yet, let the miracle play out in your mind’s eye and write about that moment in your future.
 
I went through a rough patch in my business life 10 years ago.  We had just had a splitting of two companies that I had owned with three other men.  We split without court rooms and attorney's, but it was still a failure and a divorce for me.  But as I imagine these things might feel, there was quite a bit of euphoria once we got the deal done.  It was as if I could breath again. 
 
But I was not done yet.  Or rather, it was not yet done with me.  Because you see, I had not wanted to travel the roads that my partners and I had been on.  I did not agree with all of the decisions that we had made.  I also did not want to emotionally own the mistakes that we had made together as mine.  But my partner, when we would talk about the bad decisions, the lost money, the near failure of it all would remind me that I was a partner and I was as responsible for those actions as he was.  In fact, I had made feeble efforts at stopping some of the actions, but I had also made decisions to delegate and blindly trust my other partners.  I had enough challenge on my own, let alone try to tackle their challenges as well.  So the reality I had to face was that my decision to trust when I did not trust, to allow when I did not agree was my responsibility.  I began to own the responsibility and as I did something wonderful happened.
 
If I was going to own what happened around me, and in my company, then if I did not agree or see the wisdom I would stop the action.  Not only would I stop the action I did not agree with, but I found I could stop the action, without high intensity emotion, with a simple, quiet, no we are not going to do that.  I found not only my voice, I found my will, and as I acted on my will and exerted it, I found it had power.  As I wielded that power, I found it was power for good things.  It brought together hearts, provided motivation.
As I saw the good that it did, I was affirmed inside of myself.  I found myself to be wonderfully made, not by just what I knew, because I have always been smart, but by who I was. 
 
I find myself delighting in who God has made to me to be.  Now don't misunderstand, the very next moment can become a storm of fear and feelings of failure and giving into old demons.  But those moments of delight, pure delight in how God has made me, saved me, blessed me, these moments happen more often than they used to and my moments of hating myself, dismissing who I am have decreased.