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You are here: Home / Grace Stories / Mission, Higher Calling, Leah's Heart

May 5, 2011 By Janneke

Mission, Higher Calling, Leah's Heart

May is Mission Month for this site. Jobsisbrown.com’s mission is to offer a search for meaning in the pain,  love and light After…World War II.

Leah’s Heart, is Ginny Carlson’s mission.  I wish I knew Ginny better, however I am fortunate because I see her at retreat related events and my place of worship, and I always think what a great light she and her business are for others.  When I do see Ginny I always have that feeling of, here is a kind person of power…To help us think of Ginny, or anyone”s sense of mission let’s ponder this.

Mission is a higher calling; however each of us defines higher calling….

Speaking of higher calling, Stephen Covey (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) says that when we have a sense of Mission, we have a flight plan. He goes on to say pilots may be off course 90% of the time, but because they have a plan, they get where they’re going. I want to get where I’m going too. How about you?

Mission statements are like a flight plan to keep us on course. You can get there with a flight plan, even when you think you are wildly off course.

Ginny has a flight plan. She has experienced life-threatening health challenges, which seemed to pull her wildly off course. Yet she has gone on to celebrate life and faith every day and enjoy her business. As with missions during and after World War II, she has had to face trauma and put it behind her. She reminds me that, when we reach out to each other to put trauma behind us, we’re not really putting pain behind us — to be ignored. Rather we know pain is behind us, and hope is in front of us. We can then honor that past journey, AND have a sense of mission. Here are her comments:

I can relate to the experiences of loss and light and darkness and how we can accept the past and make it part of our life, but not make it our whole life. It’s my choice to live each new day as a gift. Having had some life threatening episodes and living with a chronic disease, I find strength and joy in using the gifts God has given me, knowing God’s grace covers me.

Don’t you love it when you’re describing a friend who’s lit up with a sense of mission. What do we say?  “She’s on a mission,” right? Here’s how Ginny describes Leah’s Heart’s mission:

This Trivet looks like a mandala to me

I love, love, love that God gave me this gift (ability) to create things; things to give away or keep or sell. I wake up in the morning with new ideas flowing through my brain. I love figuring out how to bring that idea to fruition. I love having opportunity to sell my stuff (!!!) on Etsy. and most of all, I love being alive each day! And each day starts with giving thanks to God for the new day. (visit her site, lots of great gifts produced or provided by Ginny)

“…waking up in the morning with new ideas flowing through my brain.” That’s what I want. What makes you feel that way? Do you have a mission or vision statement? Are you ready for one? Tell me.

BTW, you didn’t think you were going to leave this post without viewing a black and white photo did you. Here’s Ginny (the one on the left), just a few years ago.

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Filed Under: Grace Stories, Trauma-Healing Tagged With: Ginny Carlson, Leah's Heart, Strategic planning

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Meet Janneke

Janneke Jobsis Brown
Following Shadows is inspired by my own story. As a survivor of an international childhood with parents who were World War II survivors, I know the generational after-effects of starvation and slave labor in Japanese concentration camps for my father, and the terror of Nazi occupation for my mother. I know the challenges of struggling to feel at home across three countries: The Netherlands, Iran and America.

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