Dear Readers:
As we prepare to usher in another New Year, I wanted to send this note of encouragement as we continue our journey. Despite the many challenges, its been a wonderful year. It has been my great fortune to make many new friends and business alliances, that I look forward to nurturing. I am also pleased that my inner circle has remained intact. Everyone that I began the year with, is still with me. And, equally important, I am able to count everyone who follows Brooklyn Legends as a member of my circle. What a tremendous blessing!
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As I woke up this morning, I realize that only by Grace have I been able to endure. Only by Grace have I been able to see my vision come unfold before me. I am excited about the future, even with its uncertainties.
I found it interesting that the word Grace cropped up several times during the past couple of weeks — from kind and encouraging words I received from friends and colleagues, to countless notes and articles that I have come across. In every instance, I have been reminded that Grace always meets us right where we are.
In the December issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, author Michelle Wildgen wrote an introduction to this month’s feature article Moments of Grace. As we prepare to bid farewell to 2014, and welcome to all that life has in store for us in 2015, I have decided to share Michelle’s introduction with you for today’s post.
By Michelle Wildgen, O Magazine, December 2014
Say you hear about a job you’re not interested in – but your friend insists that you interview. “Trust me,” she says. Which is how you end up talking to a woman who is bright, funny, bracing. You feel a shift: I want this job, you think, I belong here. There follows a gradual unfolding: the boss who becomes a mentor, the coworkers who become friends, the work you didn’t know you’d love. Only years later, do you see how far one person’s benevolent influence rippled, growing from small rings to the rolling waves still beyond your sight.
Life sends us serendipities; it drops like little miracles into our laps. You hear your college sweetheart’s favorite song, turn the corner and run into him. You lock your keys in the car at the gas station and see your roommate at the next pump. That’s grace, but there is another kind, too – a subtler kind that heralds the beginning of something, or simply brings unexpected delight. That bad restaurant? The guy in line for the bathroom will turn out to be the many you marry. That vending machine? Its going to give you an extra Kit Kat.
Who offers these gifts? God, the universe, a metaphysical entity that occasionally rigs a vending machine? Whatever the answer, one thing is certain: The world is marvelously mysterious. Grace shows up now and again to remind us of this.
It is a blessing that can’t be earned, only received. You’d get nothing done if you went around watching for miracles all the time. But you’d do well to stay alert enough to see them out of the corner of your eye.
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Thank you for your support.
Wishing you all the best in 2015.
Fondly,
Monique
Brooklyn Legends 