!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> rachman-unprecedented: Money Makes the World go Around

rachman-unprecedented

So what is this going to be? A little bit of everything I think. Maybe that's it. What I'm thinking. What I'm believing. I hope what I'm knowing. And why would anyone care what I think I know? There's no reason in the world that you should. But then why are you here? Cuz you have to be somewhere I suppose. I've never been here before. I may not be back. I might get too busy to care; time is short. That's fine. Nobody can deal with it all at once. There is a lot to deal with.

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Location: The Great Plains, United States

I try not to take myself too seriously, but I know I have far too much. So I'm trying to learn how to laugh again, as I had forgotted for a while there. Also I'm relearning to enjoy life; you know, like when we were kids. The biggest challenge ahead is learning how to love God with all my heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. This one is not really that hard when you know the truth. But along with it comes learning to love others as I love myself, and that one is, as they say, "a horse of a whole different color." I think I need to learn to love myself a little more, but the problem may be that I know all these facts about me. Sometimes the facts are simply wrong or they are just stuck in the past. I'm trying to get my facts to line up with the truth. As someone once asked a great man, "what is truth?" If he had only known.

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Friday, January 12, 2007

Money Makes the World go Around



I read a story on the internet, some six, seven or more years ago, about a presentation given by the speaker of some kind of motivational seminar. It used money as a parallel for our lives. As is sometimes the way of things found on the web, there were no names or substantiating facts given to back up anything. Nevertheless I was quite impressed by the story. So much so that I remembered it and some how made the story my own. If you don't want me to use it, then why do you tell it to me?

I was working with a beautiful young woman with red hair a few years back. Now to me red heads are either beautiful or let's say they were made with someone else in mind. (There is someone made for everyone I've been told.) This woman was not only beautiful, but very capable and talented. We were both working in sales, so I know she was very successful. Thank god we worked in different departments, so I didn't feel threatened.

Everyone it seems, comes from some kind of dysfuctional background. In the case of my lovely red head, (I say "my" only in the sense that I was fortunate enough to work with her,) she had come from quite a bit of emotional abuse back up the line somewhere. She had then added to the problems by trying to numb the pain with alcohol and drugs. Consequently she somehow had the idea that she had very little value. Even though she had been clean and sober for a few years now, she couldn't see that she was something amazing. It was one of those cases where anyone who knew her saw value, but she seemed to think there was none there. It may be this way in every case, but this is the one that I was made aware of.

Over time we grew close enough to share with each other all kinds of emotional baggage. I don't know why, but we felt safe with each other. I'd like to say that it evolved into something more than just friends, but then I would be lying. (But then how would you ever know for sure. Yeah, we had a hot lecherous affair. All right I'm lying again. I've never been a good liar. Okay, we were just friends, blast it!) To continue, we were able to talk freely with each other.

One day at work, as we were talking, she repeated an often used comment. One which revealed yet again, her lack of self worth. (This is where the money story comes in. Remember we were talking about a money story.) I reached into my pocket to find a $20 bill, like the one I heard about in the story. Unfortunately I didn't have any bills that big. In fact I didn't even have a ten or a fiver. But there was a relatively new looking $1 bill left over from the change at lunch. It will have to do. "I want to give you this money," I said. "I don't want your money," she said. Okay, this was not working. I'll have to explain a bit first. "Okay, you don't have to take my money, but imagine, if you will, that you came across this money somewhere. You know that you are not taking anyone's money away from them. But there it is waiting on you. Would you want to pick it up and keep it?" "Well, sure. It's money," she said. I took the new looking bill and proceeded to crumple it up and then asked, "Do you still want it?" She nodded her head "yes," wondering where I was going with this. I said, "What if I do this?" I dropped the bill on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with my shoe. Then I picked it up, though it was now crumpled and dirty, and asked, "Now, do you still want it?" "Well, of course," she said, "it's money." So I said with as much love as I knew how to give, "I want you to remember something. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth whatever denomination it was. Whether $1 or one million. You are just like that bill. It doesn't matter what others do to you or even what you do to yourself, you still have value.

"We do not decrease in value by the decisions we make or by what others do to us or by the circumstances that come our way. We may feel as though we are worthless, but it doesn't change anything.

"You will never lose your value. You are special--don't ever forget that."

One thing I neglected to tell the lovely red head, I now add on for you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by who we are and whose we are. If we belong to God, then He is the one who gives us value and worth.


~ rachman
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4 Comments:

Blogger CaptainCraft said...

I have heard that story about money before. I always liked redheads, I use to have a crush on Miss Kitty. Anyway, I hope things are going well for the woman in the story. Take care.

12/1/07 10:35 PM  
Blogger rachman said...

Scott, I thought you might like redheads, but who else would remember Miss Kitty after all these years:D

Last I heard the lovely redhead was still sober, was happily married, and living in the Mediterranean (hubby is a sailor). So I guess all is well.

Thanks for dropping by, Scott.
Later~rachman

13/1/07 11:31 PM  
Blogger Bob said...

I hadn't heard that story before. It's quite a good lesson.

14/1/07 6:44 AM  
Blogger rachman said...

Hi Rob,
As I mentioned in the post, the first time I heard the story it left such an impression on me that it stayed with me. It was probably a year or so later that I passed it on to my redheaded friend. I don't pretend that this one story changed her life, (she had already changed her life when I met her) but it did touch her emotionally. I like to think that the story, told to her by a friend, helped the wounded soul heal a bit. I'm not trying to be immodest, as I have never told this story to anyone before. I was just given an opportunity to lift up a fellow traveler.

Anyway I agree it is a good lesson. Talk to you later, my friend.

~r.

14/1/07 7:43 PM  

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