Some years ago I encouraged a person that crossed my path to step out on faith and begin working in the area of their talent. At the time that we met, they were involved in an abusive relationship both verbally and sometimes physical. It was clear to me that the Lord was using our meeting as a way to heal not just her, but to stretch me beyond my comfort zone.
Two different personality types were coming together, me with my spirit of “just make it happen,” and her “I’ll get to it.” Sometimes colliding along the way, we made the most of our meeting and became the best of friends.
The music industry is really competitive, but I know if the right person ever hears that voice and that song they will snatch her up right where she stands, because she can truly move the room. When I close my eyes, she reminds me of Helen Baylor one of my favorite gospel artists of all time.
It’s funny how friendships ebb and flow at times and if you are not careful you can find yourself doing all the listening and never any of the talking, and all the doing and hardly any of the receiving, or all the paying and not much of the getting and it goes on from there. And so it went in this situation. As time moved forward, the calls became few and far between. My calls started being met with the voicemail. When we did talk, and mentioned that I had called, she never realized I called, or never saw it on the call log……really?
The whole thought of competition or jealousy is not really something I think about because I just think we ought to celebrate each other. In this case, I hadn’t spoken to her in the longest time. When we did talk the conversation was just a bunch of riddles that didn’t amount to anything. We talked last week and our conversation just really took the cake as the old folks used to say. After some small talk, she kept saying: Friend me on Facebook. Be sure and accept my friend request on Facebook. Get back to me quickly. Don’t forget girl. I agreed and hung up.
When I had the opportunity to get to Facebook, I was taken back because she was announcing an entire conference that she was headlining! I would have considered it good news, but months prior she had mentioned that she thought we should do something like this together, as a matter of fact, I had given her ideas, many of which I was now looking at in this advertisement. Following that conversation months earlier, there was no further word with her seemingly dropping off the face of the Earth without any explanation, now this.
Philippians 2:3-4 ESV instructs us, do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than you. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interest of others.
As I have been walking out the journey of building my vision it has literally thrown me into arenas with all kinds of people who have all types of views and perspectives. The sad reality is true and sincere people that are truly willing to stand on the promises of the scripture that what is for YOU is for YOU. There are still signs of the “crabs in the barrel” mentality.
Proverbs 28:1 speaks of the righteousness in boldness, and it goes like this, “The wicked flees when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.”
We ought to strive to do right and be right in our relationships and in our transactions. Things that we are doing, why hide them in the dark in the back room under the table? We are doing them for the good; why not shout it from the mountain top? Why not create a community where we don’t have to be concerned that we are taking from our brother or our sister? Rather we are looking to support and share.
The time has come that we must learn to give to one another and share amongst each other. If we trust in loyalty, our friendships can be stronger, our business’ can grow and our relationships be more powerful.
Tanya Wilson is an inspirational speaker and writer living in Charlotte. To learn more about her visit http://www.360you.net or visit her on Facebook.
Other columns by Tanya Wilson:
| High Five For the First Lady! We Love the Obamas |
| Stop, Pray and Proceed! |
| Whitney And Michael Succumbed To The Blue Birds |
