You can't change your past, only your future. They say things happen for a reason and we might not ever know what the reason is or was. You just have to move on and don't let the past hold you back. So keep looking forward - adjust as needed. There is only One who never changes, and that is God. Thankfully He is always there - to guide us on our journey.
My late husband Barry started our Ambit business (July 2012) for us in the midst of his incurable cancer. (He had esophageal cancer and was with us for 18 months and was able to see his youngest graduate from high school.) Barry saw Ambit as a means to provide for our family long after his death, which was in July 2013. He worked hard the first few months and promoted to the next level - Regional Consultant with a team of five levels in his marketing code. His slowed down during the last six months though he kept paying the website, so that the residual income would add up and start paying out.
As he was nearing death, I was unsure of what to do with the business. I knew it was both willable and sellable. So I was thinking of selling it. I had not been to a presentation and only knew a little of what it was about by Barry showing me his website. But at the time, I wasn't interested in switching people's electric and gas, I just wanted to have a business that dealt with having home parties and hanging out with all of my friends. I remember when Barry came home from a meeting in Nov 2012, wearing a pin that read Regional Consultant on it. He told me what it was for and I told him that I would have loved to have been there to support him when he was promoted. But he just replied that he knew I didn't like Ambit, so he didn't ask me to come. Wow, those memories are still emotional. The day before Barry died, one of our friends spoke with me about the business and the potential earnings that Barry witnessed in others and had hoped to achieve himself one day for his family. I had been so selfish and stubborn that year - I had wanted Barry to help me with my home-based business but I wouldn't help him with his. I look back on that now and just think of it as something that he wanted to do for the family - one last effort to provide before God took him home to stay. So after talking with our friend, we went to Barry, and I was able to tell him that I would take over his Ambit business for him, and would continue it to provide for his/our family in the years to come.
I attended my first presentation a month or so later. Everyone welcomed me to the local meeting and continued to support and encourage me in the months to come. In January 2014, I had the opportunity to learn how to present. So I needed to come up with my "how I got started in Ambit and why am I doing it.". Well, my how will never change. My how is because Barry wanted to provide for his family when he himself knew he wouldn't be here to see it make a difference in our lives." But why was I doing it? It couldn't just be because Barry started it for me. It had to be something that I wanted from it - a goal or a dream fulfilled. I had come to know Ambit as the vehicle that can help you achieve magnificent dreams, if that's what you want.
I just wasn't sure what my why should be. I was debt free, so that couldn't be it. I didn't have kids in college to pay for, I was already living in a nice condo, drove a decent car. I found it hard to dream without Barry in my life. He was the one that I was planning on spending the rest of my life with, when in fact, it was me who got to spend the rest of his life with him. I wondered if I even had any dreams? It would be a matter of digging deeper into my past, to the times when I used to dream; like I did as a child.
I am in a writing group and one of the lessons recently was on writing your eulogy - except not as your life is now, but thirty years out. I wrote that I would eventually remarry (husband #3), move to a beautiful house by Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. Only because I decided I'd rather not live alone the rest of my life and I've always wanted to live in a house by a lake in the mountains. I love to travel - but I'm already doing those kinds of things, so I knew it wouldn't be enough for me to tag on to my "Why am I doing Ambit?"
Last week I had to opportunity to child-sit two 'special needs' children with down syndrome. Neither of them talk and only make noises ever so often. They know some sign language - like eat, which was helpful. Both of them were mobile, though only one walked. And they were still in diapers. It was an experience that will stay with me forever. I was reminded of how they started their life - in a crib for over three years of their lives, in an orphanage in Bulgaria. They were children, like so many others, who were needing a family to love and take care of them. The kids were adopted by on our pastors and have now been in the states for about 13 months. They have some challenges ahead of them, but they are among a family who love them, just the way they are. These children are from God and deserve to be loved and cared for, no matter what. And although it is not my passion to care for children in a long-term situation, I know there are families who would love the opportunity to be a mom and a dad to one of these children, or to a child of an unwed mother, or to a child in foster care because the parents are unable to care for him/her. There are needs everywhere for children to be taken in, cared for, and loved on. God calls us to love one another. (I John 4:11 "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.")
Many thanks to those with the gift of compassion towards children. I have a gift too - of wanting to help other people with tangible gifts - maybe a new umbrella stroller, or a trampoline. Things that would make a little difference in a child's life; or with a financial gift - make a difference in the parents' life - such as giving funds to help them adopt a child into their family. Everyone has different gifts, that's why it does take a community to raise a child, that is, with God's help. (I John 3:18 "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.")
So now I can say that although my "how I got started" in this business will never change, my "why I am doing Ambit" is so I can use this as an opportunity to help as many families as possible - to make a difference in their lives with tangible items, or help them by adding to their adoption fund; so that they can raise up a child with God's love. Children are worth getting out of bed for. They are the next generation. We need to teach them and coach them and share Christ with them. And to do that, they have to be in our midst. [Though there are several international programs available where you can sponsor a child and keep in contact with them - by letters or emails. Any opportunity to share Jesus with a child is a good one.]
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