As my contractor neighbor and I sat down to eat lunch after the third day of putting up the framework for the screened-in patio we’re building, he asked me if I’d ever built anything this big before. I incorrectly told him “No.”
It’s not true, though. I’ve helped build a Church that’s almost 10 years old and expanding beyond its physical boundaries. I’m also building legacies.
Right now, though they have three published books between them, my children don’t seem convinced that Ink Well Spoken, Manu Forti Ministries and Water2WinePress Publishing House are lanes that have been built for them to pour OUR talents into so that they never have to work for someone else. Though it hurts a little, I’m coming to peace with it. What I told them recently is to get into another lane and prove me wrong.
It’s my challenge to them: go HARD in something else to prove that what I’ve been speaking into them about the generational talent working inside of them as wordsmiths is not part of their destiny. Make a lane in some other talent that they want to explore; at this point, it doesn’t matter. I just want them to put their ALL into something with drive. It might be acting or piano for Maiyah; it could be robotics or the drums for Josiah. I just want them to go all in.
Adversity Paradox is real. We’ve worked so hard to eliminate obstacles from their lives that there may not be enough struggle to motivate them beyond where they currently are because they’re comfortable. The poverty some of their grandparents grew up in is too far in the rearview mirror to motivate them. Me standing behind them directing them towards our writing talent and poising them to hand off these businesses to them has reached a saturation point: if I push any further, the only drive it’s going to create is “far away from it” (meaning it’s going to drive them far away from the talent if I don’t pump the brakes a bit).
I trust God enough to let them go their own way and see if they come back to what He has gifted and directed me to build. I trust them enough to, at the very least, take in every trait they see in their parents (shout out to Quiana Kee – I’m not the only one they’re watching!) and emulate them in whatever they do they way I see them already doing in school.
I told them they were both AMAZING yesterday to which Josiah responded: “Guess who made us amazing?” I guessed, “Jesus” but he quickly fired back, “Guess who raises us to be amazing?” Like this home project I’ve been working on this week, I’m not even finished yet – I’m just glad they recognize the WORK that’s being put in.
