There have numerous times that I have said something to my kids and a “beacon of light” has gone off in their head. It seems to me that kids are exactly like us when we were kids. They are very impatient and succumb to disappointment easily. My eldest daughter Alana is what some would call a confused 19-year-old who wants the world not only now, but right now. I have had to pick her up a few times and say a good or inspiring word to her. She needs constant motivation. About six months ago Alana came back to live with me, which was different for Alana because for the first 12 years of her life I was a single dad.
It was always Alana and dad, at some point Alana decided she needed to live with her mother. Well turned out to be a bad idea, the next three years were terrible for her. So she ask to come back to live with me to straighten her life out. So of course I let her move back in. I told her she had to wait two weeks before she moved in so she could get her partying “out of her system. ” Over the last six months my daughter struggled to get her driver’s license, GED, a job, and her own place. She was met with life’s disappointment, but after the disappointment of not getting into the school of her choice Alana broke down into tears.
Alana could not understand why “things were not going her way. ” I first told her of the story my mother told me when I had gone to jail for the last time. My mother said to me while I was in jail, “you are looking at this all wrong, don’t think of it as getting arrested, look at it as you getting rescued. ” Of course I was even more ticked off because I did not need another pep talk, but after lying in bed for a few hours it made sense to me. While being arrested is not fun, my jail stay meant that when I got released I was truly free. Free to walk with my ID card and not have to worry about the police running my name.
Yes, I was rescued and free. Now of course Alana asked me, “what does you being in jail have to do with my situation? ” I explained to Alana that when you change the way you think, you change your actions. I explained that while what she wanted did not happen, it does not mean it will never happen. I also told her that she should let this disappointment be her motivation. Since that day she has been working hard. In three months time she received her GED, driver’s license, a new vehicle and paid for her school. That is my most memorable time when my words were powerful to someone else.
