Heart Shaping events...

Wow, it seems like forever ago when i sat down to write for my blog! But we had a great Christmas and a fantastic New Year!
i really wanted to get back and write about a class I had the opportunity to take with Lincoln Christian Seminary this week that was actually held at the Chiara Center just outside of Springfield, IL. It was a weeks worth of intense "inner work".
Now i know that some of you may read that last sentence and think... "oh great, do we have to get all introspective and stuff?!?" Well yeah... we do.... it's good for you!


The class was titled, "Shaping The Heart of The Leader" and was unlike any class i ever took in my undergrad studies at Lincoln. But here is the basic premise in a nutshell.... "What are the key events from your life that have shaped your heart?" When you stop to think about it... that seems like a pretty weak question to build an week long intensive seminary class around but when you have the opportunity to "go vertical" (meaning dig deep) as our instructor invited us to do that question can in an instant cause your life to literally flash before your eyes. Let me share one such story. i have shared this before but it's power never fades...

Mr. Wroughton was a teacher and coach in my Jr. High school Blackhawk Jr. High and was intimately interested in his students. Most people would have looked at me, a pre-teen, fatherless black kid and thought… “no way that kid is going to make it…” The truth is I probably would have believed them too had Mr. Wroughton not made a difference with one simple act of kindness…

Everyday at the end of basketball tryouts and after “showers” (remember this is Junior High) were taken we could find out who was invited back the next day by looking at the list posted on Mr. Wroughton's office door. I made it through all three days of tryouts until Friday… the list was posted for those invited back for Monday to be on the team! Guess what…my name was not on list. I cried all the way home… it just so happened that the basketball coach drove by me as I walked home and could see me crying.

On Monday, that same coach asked me to stick around for the first practice of the basketball team. At the end of the practice, he gathered everyone around himself for a moment. He asked if anyone had noticed that I was in practice even though I had not made the final cut on Friday. He went on to explain that I was asked to stick around because, he continued, that after our last day of tryouts he had been driving home and drove past me. He then told this group of pre-teen, pubescent, Jr. High boys that he’d seen me crying as I walked home from the tryouts that day. The response was predictable, the snickering and giggling seemed to last forever.

Mr. Wroughton then followed that up with a statement something like this… “I asked Robby (Pause) to come to practice today and I want him to be on this team because any guy who wants so badly to be a part of this team that he would cry because he wasn’t, I figure we can’t be without”

That was a definitely a heart shaping moment... it changed me forever. How about your heart shaping event? I'd love to hear about it!