Your prosperity is wrapped around a stone

What if I told you that your financial collapse – unemployment, debt, bankruptcy, foreclosure, hospitalization – is a blessing in disguise? Can you stand to be blessed? I mean, can you stand it because despite what the prosperity folks are saying, you’re about to go through some things.

This is what’s occurring in our country on a massive scale. We are being blessed, but right now, we really can’t stand it.

When the collapse of my financial house began a few years ago, I was a desperate, emotional wreck. Seriously, I cried every day for a year as the unimaginable was happening in my life real time: unemployment, bankruptcy, foreclosure, and after all that, an extended hospital stay. Despite all my begging to God (or maybe because of it), I lost everything.

My children went from one of the best public school districts in the country to one of the worst. We went from living in our own little home to depending on the kindness (and tolerance) of others.

I know what it’s like to stand in the unemployment line and later, when that runs out, to sit for hours in the welfare office, waiting your turn. I’m not proud, but I did what I needed to do to take care of my family.

Through it all I learned how to be more resourceful. See, I never wanted to work a job. I have an entrepreneurial spirit, but through the years of doing the 9 to 5, I hadn’t honored it. Since I had to care for my two children by myself, I never felt that I could stop working.

I love and respect my entrepreneurs, freelancers, self-publishers, and independents so much because I know what they’re going through to achieve their goals.

If you really want something, if Life calls you to do something but you’re afraid to take that first step, Life has a way of shoving you onto your path of destiny – and it won’t take no for an answer.

I was shoved onto my path of being an independent writer, editor, and publishing consultant to the stars kicking and screaming. But eventually I accepted where Life was leading me. Slowly but surely, strengths within me that I didn’t know I had rose to the surface. My tears stopped falling. I was being remade into the entrepreneur I always wanted to be.

From time to time I fought it. I can’t tell you how many resumes I sent out and not one interview. I wanted to come in from the cold, but Life said, “No no no.” To keep me going through the dark times I read inspirational books. I listen to inspirational speakers, and I’ve probably been taken in by some thieves along the way.

A minister friend always says, “Donna, your blessing is wrapped up in a stone.” I heard another say, “Can you stand to be blessed?” Two different ways of saying the same thing. This is Jacob wrestling with the angel. Even Cinderella had to go through some things before she married her prince. (And who knows what she went through after the wedding. Did he pick up after himself? Was he on the DL? Sorry, Eddie Long on the brain.)

Before you ask to receive, make sure you’re ready to do whatever it takes (legally, ethically) to make your dream come true. It’s easy to say yes at the beginning of your journey when you're visualizing and affirming your millions and mansions, but what will you say when they’re threatening to turn the lights off? How will you turn them back on?

Learning how to turn the lights back on when you have no money is your blessing in action. Believe it or not, it's a step toward manifesting your heart's desire.

Now do you think you can stand to be blessed?

Donna Marie