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Imagine waking up one morning to a cataclysmic personal shift…the kind of shift that forces you to reexamine everything in your past… current situation, and future.
The firmament crumbled. Where you believed in a bedrock foundation, not only are there chinks but sucking sounds that let you know water has been seeping in for years while you were unaware. The rot is extensive, and the cost of repair would have been high had you known about the leaks. However, it's too late for a patch job, and you're facing a complete tear-down and rebuild because the foundation will no longer hold. The next storm, predicted soon, will leave the structure completely uninhabitable.
Some people and organizations tell us we're too old to start again. Our finances won't sustain us through a significant overall and certainly not a rebuild. Oh, by the way, the developers really want this property and others to create a new community… one we couldn't afford. They've been quietly acquiring other parcels and had their plans approved through secret meetings financing… and with us out of the way; their plans will come to fruition.
And by the way, none of you can afford to live in this area again. Your investment portfolios haven't kept up with the cost of inflation or world markets. Your now destroyed homes were your last and best asset. Those loans you extended to others were never fully repaid, although the borrower's circumstances improved.
As the future remains uncertain, you seek counsel only to hear contradictory or defeated statements and very vague or hopeless responses. Then you remember a young woman— Amanda Gorman's closing words on the occasion of President Biden's inauguration…
When the day comes, we leave the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light if only we're brave enough to see it. If only we were brave enough to be it.
Joyce A. Brown is a motivational speaker and author who uses her creative energy to give voice and meaning to the challenges women face in all walks of life. She grew up in Rockford, Illinois in a household of strong women, but her professional career expanded her reach into Peoria and Battle Creek, Michigan. She is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and has served as a direct services worker, executive director, program director for a major foundation, and entrepreneur. Joyce has experienced many uplifting moments as a professional and as a dedicated parent and strives to bring those events and lessons to life through her characters in the contemporary fiction novels she pens. Visit her Author’s Page.
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