Best gift ever!

I decided to daily respond to the prompts on wordpress with a quick blog. So hmmm, what was the best gift I ever received?

There have been so many gifts given to me in life, but the greatest ones are not tangible things:

• My faith in Jesus is the greatest gift of all.
• Life itself is a tremendous gift, a miracle if you will
• My soul mate and husband of almost 43 years
• Opportunity to get an education, and experience using it to start a business

But the biggest gift initially was nothing I wanted- economic reversal as a result of both of us loosing our career job in 2010 was crushing, yet liberating. It caused us to dig deep inside and find new courage , wisdom, direction. We were both grieving the loss of our nice income and jobs we tailored our education around. Our identity was severed and we had to start again.

Lots of takeaways resulted from that turbulent time… but the biggest lesson was to never grow dependent on any company for everything. We began to build our identity seperately from corporate America. Purpose and direction fell into place as our own business grew from a small whisper of a start to a viable means of income.

In the struggle to reestablish our identity, purpose and income we both learned it is not only possible to be free of the constraints of corporate control, but also free to draw our identity from more stable sources.

This gift of freedom has taught us there is a way of living outside the mold. And a freedom to never be subject to the whims of another for our income.

What’s your greatest gift?