Dear Friends,
Our lives are filled with opportunities to influence and to be influenced. We meet people who we instantly know would benefit from a helping hand. And at the same time, we meet others who we instantly know could have a profound impact our own lives.
I have spent many hours contemplating this phenomenon, and I have come to refer to it as the Mentoring Ladder. At any given time in our life, we are standing on a ladder composed of rungs that represent the different stages of our physical, emotional and spiritual growth. The lower rungs represent the stages of our childhood and we climb through the rungs of our schooling, work lives, retirement and old age. Ideally, this ladder is leaning firmly on a cloud that represents our heavenly destination.
No mater where we are on this ladder, there is always the opportunity for us to reach down to help someone else along and to reach up to take the hand of someone who has stopped long enough to lend us a hand to the next level. John writes, "There is no greater love than he who would lay down his life for his friend." There is no greater love than to stop your climb to assist a friend climbing behind you.
And as you can imaging, there is God's loving hand at the very top of this journey, reaching down and guiding us along the path to salvation.
I have learned something quite interesting about my own fears. I am not afraid of heights, or climbing, or flying, or being on the top floor of a sky scraper but I am deathly afraid of falling. I will forever be dependent on that hand above me, reaching down to lend me a hand of encouragement for the next rung of my journey.
As you go through your day, please know that your Board of Directors care deeply about you and your journey. We gladly reach down and offer our hands of encouragement to you as you carry out the daily mission of MHI.
I pray that you are blessed in all that you do.
In Him,
Dave Southwick
