Everything is Always Working Out for Me - episode 155
He’s inspired by anyone who lives authentically. That’s Brandon Rice, this week’s guest. I could have spoken to him for hours. It turns out we have many of the same philosophies. Brandon wants to become his best self, and he wants to encourage others to do the same. That should sound familiar. The tattoo he has that says “courage” on his left forearm is a reminder of its Latin meaning “heart” as in follow your heart, and that is exactly what Brandon is doing.
As Brandon shared, negativity is a perception. That’s why everything is always working out for him. It’s all in how you view it. Positive thoughts bring positive results while negative thoughts bring negative results. That’s the law of attraction. There definitely are ways to shift how we see things, to learn from the hard things so we can move on better than before. I know just what he means - become who you already are.
Humble. Authentic. Calm.
— Brandon Rice
Looking for the Good
Thoughts from Everything is Always Working Out for Me
I painted a picture of a tree with the roots firmly planted, the branches growing outward. Now mind you I am not an artist. I used the painting to demonstrate all of the many ways I have been blessed after the biggest heartbreak of my life. In that way I very much agree with Brandon’s assessment of “everything is always working out for my good.” Now I can’t fully explain this to you I just feel in my gut it is true for me.
As I’ve written in these pages before, our son died at three months of age after his heart gave out. This is the kind of thing you would never sign up for, and yet the hard parts of life come anyway. I am glad to have had this experience, however difficult it was. As I grieved the loss a verse stood out for me in Romans, chapter eight, verse twenty-eight. “For we know that God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.” It did not say “except when Ron and Rechelle lose their son, Christian.” It said all. I know when we say it it’s different than when God says it.
Fast forward some years and I’ve been asked to give a talk, share a chapter of my story for a women’s event. I knew what I wanted to talk about: the gifts that came from Christian’s life. As I explained how Ron and I had intentionally turned around, and looked for the gifts that came, a friend suggested I create a tree to show them one by one. I did. I certainly was astounded by what I saw. There were so many we could trace directly back to our son’s time here. Three of many come quickly to mind.
We couldn’t have any more biological children and we both wanted to raise a child together while we finished raising the ones we brought to our marriage. Enter baby girl Taylor whom we adopted. There is so much more to her story that could not possibly fit in this one blog. Suffice it to say, we believe she was meant to be in our family.
In their condolence card to us, our neighbors gave us tickets to a local play featuring children. After the performance was over our son Shaun announced, “I want to do that.” We got him enrolled and he thrived to the point that has performed ever since. He is working voice actor today.
A short time after Christian died I concluded my time in the classroom as a teacher. I prayed, “God if you could find me something that involves education and kids, in the performing-arts realm, that would be really great.” Now I should add I rarely pray for myself especially in such a specific manner. Imagine my surprise when two weeks later I was asked to develop a performing-arts program to take to schools throughout our county. I would start it from scratch, write curriculum, hire teaching artists and train them, make contact with schools and see where this could go. I am delighted to say I stayed 15 years and enjoyed every single one. We were ultimately at dozens of schools serving hundreds of kids, impacting lives through the arts.
There are many more stories like this, many of which are not represented on the tree below. The tree was made about 10 years after his passing and it’s been a dozen or so years since then. The gifts keep coming, they really do. I want to make clear I would rather have my son here given the choice. AND I recognize that God could have done all of these things in numerous other ways, yet he didn’t. He chose this time, this place, these people to experience these things. I did not get to choose his passing but I did get to choose how I look at it. I will continue looking for the good.
I did get to choose how I look at it.
— RCN
