It's very easy to be comfortable being comfortable. One thing that I have learned about myself is that I grow most when I step out of my comfort zone. I am comfortable being uncomfortable.

As I reflect back over the years there a number of those poignant moments that have forged me into who I am today. Kneeling down to take the hand of the young man stricken with cerebral palsy lying on a slab of concrete at the Emanual Orphanage in Haiti as I had to force myself from welling with tears. The time in Belarus I shared a meal with my friend,Anja, and her family knowing what I was being served was probably equivalent to two weeks of their family's salary. The heart wrenching walk I had around Bogota with the young man struggling to overcome his heroin addiction. He went from being a promising chef in Spain to living on the floor in the back of his boss's restaurant. The lunch I shared with a Holocaust survivor in Jerusalem with the numbers still visibly tattooed on the inside of his arm. Or the time I drove along the coast of Fiji observing one person after another lying along the side of the road strung out on kava, unemployed and living in homes that were made of nothing more than scrap metal and thatched roofing. All of these moments are etched in my memory and I'm thankful for each of them. 

I pray that I will always look life straight in the eyes and do my utmost to get the most from these experiences and the individuals I meet along the way. As I lay in bed last night I kept thinking what if I had been born in Haiti, Belarus , Bosnia? I am not sure I have that answer and I'm even less sure of how resilient I would be if faced with the challenges so many I've met over the years have encountered. 

I am grateful to be an American. I thank God for allowing me to be in a land of the free and home of the brave. The blessings we have here are not to be self contained. It is our duty to utilize our abilities and abundance and do our part to help those who are unable to help themselves. That includes the many who struggle here in our own communities and within our own backyards. Pay it forward, do a little goodness and your sure to feel a little lighter and that smile will grow a little bigger. 

Sent from my iPhone