"Greatness"

A person's greatest accomplishment may be helping others to accomplish great things. Likewise, a person's greatest failure may be preventing others from achieving greatness.

I have three boys in my home. God has placed them there. When the third one arrived this week, I watched as the other two began to kind of team up together. The funny thing about it was they don't really have that much in common and are friends, however their interests are so different, they rarely do anything together. They get along to a certain point, but one is older and prideful and the other one is shy and uncertain. So when I noticed this change in their behavior, and one made a comment in the kitchen that was derogatory about the new boy, and he did it where the boy could have heard him.

So as I watched what was going on I decided I needed to address the situation before it got out of hand. I confronted the two of them and asked them how they would feel if they were in this boy's position.

I explained he is now a part of our family and was looking for a chance. He had just shared with me how he had been suicidal while he was in junior high and his whole life everyone had told him he was a failure and would never make it. He said to me, "Dana, this is my last chance. I want to learn how to live, how to make it, I want to live for God." He said, "I want to stay with yall as long as you will let me and until I am ready to make it on my own."

So as I shared this with the boys, I explained to them, that we are our brother's keeper and God had brought this boy to us, just as He had brought them. I then said, it is our responsibiltiy to do everything possible to help him succeed, that if he didn't succeed, it would not be because of something they had done or we had done.

We talked about love and committment, about how no one wants to be a failure, no one wants to be abusive, no one really wants to be unhappy, that all of us want to succeed and be who God wants us to be. I then asked if I could count on them to do everything possible to help us to be a big happy family where each of them could accomplish great things. I was assured they would help and as of the last two days, I have been amazed at how they are doing everything to help him, but they are much more willing to do the things we ask them to do also.

Later I was thinking about how we view greatness. Sometimes we may mistake a position, money, success, being famous or something else for greatness, but truly greatness can be a small thing like helping someone else achieve something they may not believe they can accomplish.