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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781462000913 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 09/23/2011 |
| Pages: | 108 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.26(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Late Dream
Finding PurposeBy B. Louis Richardson
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 B. Louis RichardsonAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-0091-3
Chapter One
Late Dream
Leaving my wife curled up on the bed, I walked across the hall and, in the chill of the night, started my routine by checking the kids. Even in the tropics, the air has a significant chill during February.
My wife appreciated that I considered it my duty to ensure that the kids were safe. Two or three times, I'd visit their room. These checks seemed to also develop a special bond between my wife and me, so it was a mutually beneficial journey down the hallway, gently illuminated by the light from the distant kitchen.
Our adventurous son, two years old, and energetic six-year-old daughter were both sleeping like tiny angels who had landed on a bed in our home, perhaps left here for a specific purpose. Occasionally the sound of the ocean trailed behind me as I left our room, but usually the only significant sound was the wind seeking to stream through the windows in the kids' room also.
For several months, many thoughts had hinged on my mind as I'd crossed the doorways. The quietness of the night reduced the conscious influences that normally preoccupied me. I had grown to like my busy lifestyle. Usually, once my feet hit the floor in the morning, my mind raced, leading the way to my active daily schedule at the shoe store.
Often when I exited the kids' room, I left thinking about their future. My wish was that they'd maximize their potential and become all they could be, taking advantage of every opportunity available to them.
Sometimes the squeak of a toy or a soft absorbing teddy bear under my feet interrupted my thoughts momentarily. But returning to the poorly-lit hallway, I'd resume my considerations, thinking about how I could brighten my son's and daughter's future pathways.
I wanted to cultivate my kids' dreams from an early age. I dreaded seeing them lose focus like I had constantly during the last twenty years.
Two decades earlier, my life had radiated with purpose and direction, as I moved towards the completion of my own goals. I had returned from New York in 1990, having completed my private pilot's course.
I'd grown up on the island of Anguilla—thirty-five square miles with a population of twelve thousand—in a society that was influenced by the American culture through television. Subsequently, I'd fitted right into Brooklyn.
Living in New York had truly afforded me some of the most exciting times of my life and, I'd thought, the most challenging. But the biggest challenges of my life would be at home in my own town during the years that followed.
I had huge dreams of becoming a professional pilot. At twenty-one, I made excellent progress. But an entrepreneurial spirit that had developed over several years stood in the door, beckoning me to follow a different path.
I really can't put a finger on what it was exactly, but something in me generated an ambitious desire that went into overdrive. Instead of approaching the bank for a loan to continue my training as a pilot, I brought my newest retail business idea to fruition. That's when I drifted off the aviation pathway into a retail business.
Over the next five years, I would fight with the market, running a mail-order business and implementing several retail ideas. I was trying to combine a pilot's career with that of a businessman's.
Later, I would find my place in the market, retailing men's footwear. I would spend fifteen years of my life with a few shoe outlets. The eighth to the thirteenth years were extremely successful for the shoe company.
I always believed that my relentless, spirited approach in business would inevitably result in my becoming a professional pilot sooner rather than later. But toying with marketing products would keep me from my dreams much longer than I had anticipated.
A few years ago, some fifteen years after my New York experience, I did manage to return to aviation, but the return was short-lived. Within six months, I sold my aircraft and returned my attention to the shoe stores.
I had the market—the same market that had fought against me terribly in earlier years—by its tail. Evidently, with my experience guiding me, I could do nothing wrong. I was determined to explore every avenue possible in the shoe business.
In 2008, a year after my last cockpit experience, after I'd sold the aircraft, I realized that I didn't belong in the four walls of a store any longer. I'd had enough of the career I'd drifted into. I decided to seriously pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a commercial pilot.
Shortly after that decision, my family and I moved into our new home. Our son, whose birth had completed our family, was about six months old. All of a sudden, a lot was happening in our lives. My wife's prayer for a daughter had been answered a few years earlier, and now God had answered her prayer for a son. I'd prayed for another healthy child, and both of our requests had been granted.
This brings me to the point at which my thoughts about my kids' future followed me down the hallway. My kids will be grown in a few short years. The realization hit me when I reflected on our growing daughter; I could hardly believe she was almost four.
As the months quickly passed, I deepened and increased my meditations in the quiet night about my kids' future. I moved beyond wishing for them to achieve their own goals early. My greatest desire was that they would discover the purpose for which they were born. I hoped that they'd understand and follow the true purposes they needed to fulfil, whatever those were.
Lately, when I returned to bed, my ponderings interrupted my own future plans—my plans to restore the aviation dream I had left behind in favour of retail so many years ago. I often wondered whether I was born to accomplish a specific purpose. This left me wondering where I fitted into God's plan.
I had seen great progress in my life; I had renewed focus, and finally, making my long-lost dream a reality was within my reach. Several opportunities to take on other things I endeavoured to accomplish stood alongside my aviation career.
I was studying a detailed advanced aircraft manual and had access to many other tools necessary for the projects I felt confident I'd achieve. I was proud of myself; my focus seemed comparable to that during my New York days. I had shifted my attention from selling shoes to endeavours I viewed as much more fulfilling.
Actually, the shoe business wasn't so bad. I had concluded this several years earlier when the cash register was ringing out of control. But I had stayed in the business for too long; it was time to seek new challenges. I was extremely excited about all these new ideas occupying my mind.
But during my nightly experiences, it became apparent that pursuing all my great plans might not necessarily be in line with God's purpose for my life. I had accepted Christ as my Saviour in my childhood; at about the age of twenty, I'd started taking this commitment seriously. But it seemed my plans were standing in the way of my ultimate fulfilment.
My life might have been more enriched if I had interpreted an intended life-changing encounter correctly over a decade earlier.
Chapter Two
A Wake-Up Call
The year might have been 1997, in my fifth year retailing men's footwear. I had never worked so long and hard at anything before in my life.
The evening I discovered the funeral pamphlet on the table was a typical one, after another challenging day of fighting with the market.
My afternoons usually followed the same pattern. I would sit in my parents' house—in the room they'd designated as a playroom for the grandkids—before dinner, viewing some financial news. Actually I was developing an affinity for this section of the news.
"Sunrise, Sunset." These words were among those describing the tragic death of a young man who was killed as a result of a traffic accident. These two words on the cover page of the funeral program rang out with tremendous conflicting disturbances, pounding rapidly on my mind. I can't remember if the words were immediately above or below the smiling energetic face of the handsome, well-built, dark youth. All I know was that somewhere on the page were those words—Sunrise, Sunset—distorting the content.
Today, well over a decade later, I have forgotten the scenic background details of the photo. Visions of plants and flowers of some bright colour or another are all blurred in my head. However, the youth's brightly shining smile, his white teeth, break through my clouded memory, vividly clear, like an anticipated ray of sunshine.
I'd learnt about the motorcycle accident about the time it had taken place, but I hadn't been able to connect a face with the victim. However, upon seeing the funeral program, my memory was jolted. He had suffered for a few weeks in the hospital before passing on. Accident or not, it wasn't fair when someone died this young.
Never before had I thought about the loss of a dream that accompanied a person's death; standing there, beholding the funeral program, the loss struck me. It suddenly hit me that whatever dreams the youth had held inside himself had also been terminated.
Something else bothered me, something I'd avoided all these years. I wondered if the young man had accomplished his purpose for being on this planet.
I had also wondered, What is the true purpose for my existence? This was the same question that filled my head lately, especially in the peaceful evenings.
I had managed to suppress or disconnect the inclination I felt to know God's purpose for my life. I established an analogy between the young man's sudden death and my dying dream.
My pilot's career had been on hold for several years. It seemed the analogy I drew was a useful one. This urged me to restore some kind of focus to my life.
"The time for dreams is over." That was the announcement the word sunset shouted, quite loudly, across the page. Whatever dreams the young man had possessed had been snatched away suddenly. This was a hopeless situation; there was nothing optimistic about a dream that death had interrupted, separating it from the dreamer forever.
I think I must have fought and stalled the reality of his death as long as I could, until it forcefully overpowered me, settling in like some form of paralysis.
I wasn't wrestling simply with accepting the reality of the young man's death; I was also struggling as, in my mind, I began to compare his loss with that of my failing dreams.
Questions about my true purpose popped into my mind, but I replaced them with the need to fulfil my aviation dreams. Ideas about unearthing my life's true purpose continued streaming among my thoughts, but I dismissed them frequently. The notion seemed too mind-boggling.
I think my stubborn character kept me away from peer pressure during my teen years. Once I completed high school, I ensured that I remained in control of my destiny. But yet again I deluded myself, substituting my passion for aviation as the answer to my questions.
I wondered now if the emergence of those questions was my destiny calling, facilitated by the tragic circumstances in front of me. I became inclined to believe that my reaction to the youth's untimely death was a wake-up call, prompting my desire to discover the purpose for which God had created me.
I had successfully suppressed those feelings and established my dreams as the answer. I had convinced myself that pursuing my childhood dream would bring direction into my life. I needed to address my career choice several years earlier, but I had, for the most part, allowed the promptings to do so go unnoticed.
Suddenly the last six or seven years of my life appeared similar to the construction of a sandcastle. I couldn't determine why I had driven all around the island trying to market footwear.
The analogy I had drawn—the relationship between the death of the young man and that of my dreams—entangled itself in my mind more and more as the week dragged on. I wasn't at the road's dead end as the young man had been, but I had completely lost direction. He hadn't just drawn a lesson for me; he'd demonstrated it clearly, giving the sacrifice of his own life. A bit of anger with the victim, for having utterly destroyed every opportunity he possessed, stirred inside of me. The sun had gone down, after a short season of shining radiantly on the young man. It had set on many unaccomplished, possibly indescribably brilliant, ideas, leaving them surrounded in darkness.
This vision of all that unfulfilled purpose is one we must not deny. As the proverb goes, "Make hay while the sun shines."
I knew that my life could never again be the same; this death tossed so many questions that I needed to seriously examine from all angles.
I thought I had surrendered, that I would comply with the message I'd received, following my dreams from the evening I stumbled on the funeral pamphlet. I was willing to alter my life, so I couldn't understand why the constant interrogation kept going on inside of me all week.
Several months ago, it became clear that I had missed the useful impact of that wake-up call. The constant uneasy feeling inside of me was alerting me that there was something much more important I must do than follow my aviation dream.
The true message of that funeral pamphlet was a clear call to surrender my life to God. During that period in which I was sensitive to the brevity of life, I still reached for my desires. I believe most, if not all, of us are victims of turning down another street as a substitute for our inner convictions.
I had accepted Jesus into my heart from about the age of twelve. Maybe I never understood that once you received Christ, His plans must be first. I believe that, as is the case for most people, a combination of not understanding and refusing to follow what I knew kept me chasing my own desires.
Most of us, if not everyone, can recall specific times when we've felt the strong call of God, urging us to accept Christ into our hearts and lives. In moments when our hearts were softened, we've seen the need to be Christians.
Rebelling against God's invitation presents great danger when it comes to receiving forgiveness for our sins. We are placing ourselves on a downward spiral. Often, it isn't long before we forget our immediate need for a saviour.
In addition, if you are a Christian, you've felt inclinations to give more of yourself. That's exactly where I had often found myself. Unfortunately, either I substituted that sensation with something else, or I shook it off. Other times, when I did seek to follow, I slipped away from that purpose after a few weeks.
Today, I wish I hadn't placed my desires above the message of Christ—a message that declares, "Jesus is the only hope for all humankind." Each of us was born for a single purpose, which is to bring God glory. Only when we completely surrender our lives to Him can we accomplish this. You and I need to understand this in the deepest part of our minds.
I knew I had great potential, but I chose my own path. I wonder how I could have changed the world if I had surrendered my life totally to God over thirteen years ago.
A person can be a Christian and not follow God's plans for his or her life. This will cause much pain to a world that needs the touch of Jesus Christ through our lives. My message is targeted towards both non-Christians and Christians.
It's clear to me—even though sometimes I find accepting the reality difficult—that God is calling each of us into a personal relationship with Him. This relationship was made possible through Jesus, His son. We can understand why we are here and our true purpose can be revealed only when we are connected to God by having a close relationship with Him. Only when we decide to completely offer ourselves to Him will our lives take on deep meaning.
I tried deviating from this course for many years. But there is no dream as important as fulfilling the purpose for which we were created. The only answer is Jesus Christ right now. I regret having wandered away from this principal.
The dream all of us must pursue with our whole hearts is the plan God has for our individual lives. As a matter of fact, there is no room for our own desires. The world desperately needs the help God offers through you and me. Our desires must intertwine with the heart of God.
If you aren't affected by anything happening around you, I'll not be able to reach your heart. But crime, drug use, and a long list of other maladies have disturbed the peace of our community.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Late Dream by B. Louis Richardson Copyright © 2011 by B. Louis Richardson. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
1 Late Dream....................12 A Wake-Up Call....................6
3 Seeking Direction....................12
4 The Playroom....................17
5 Acquiring the Taste....................30
6 Destiny's Call....................38
7 Purpose....................48
8 The Start of a New Day....................56
9 To the Next Level....................73
10 Opportunity....................87