Faith, Work and Stacy Abrams

The past election and the upcoming runoff here in Georgia has me thinking about political action and how we all participate in the process. I live in Georgia. The state of Georgia is getting a lot of attention after the 2020, November election. Georgia turned blue. Democrat Joe Biden won the state. Stacey Abrams is in the spotlight because of her work in this election. She deserves some of the credit for this success. 

Stacy Abram's work is responsible for increasing the number of registered people to vote in Georgia. Her work and others are responsible for flipping Georgia from red to blue in the 2020 presidential election. Stacy Abrams ran for Governor in 2018. She ran an excellent campaign. Abrams had to overcome many obstacles. She ran against a political system in a state where voter suppression was a well-known fact and common practice. Stacey Abrams did not win her race for Governor. She came close to winning, but eventually, she didn't win.  

I've seen Abrams speak several times. She's always impressed me. She spoke at my church, Oakhurst Presbyterian, several years ago. I was impressed by her intelligence and her directness. I listened at another event as she talked about being disappointed after the 2018 election. However, she did not stop at being disappointed. She did not complain about losing. She took her drive, her passion, and she went back to work. She did the job of registering people to vote for the next Georgia statewide election in 2020. Now, here in Georgia, we see the results of her work. This time, in part because of her, we get a win for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the first woman of color as Vice -President.

Abrams inspires me. 

I have worked in situations where I felt mistreated, where I felt like somebody stacked the deck against me. No matter how hard I worked, I was destined to fail regardless of how much I did to prove myself. It was a disappointing and demoralizing experience.

I realized I had the choice of remaining bitter in my disappointment, or I could get back to work. Back to the work, I love and continue to follow my passion and my drive to succeed with the hope and faith that everything will work out, even though I wasn't sure where that would lead. Through the experience, I have learned that you have to begin again from where you are. Take those steps forward and know that there are other opportunities, other successes if you get back to work. The other choice is to stay bitter, second-guess every decision you've made, and argue with the past.

The previous struggles I had may not have been fair. However, I've learned you have to move on to the next battle, the next project, to have the next big thing. The other opportunities will always be there. They will come and go. The real question is whether you will be available and see the next opportunity or be too busy re-hashing old disappointments rather than moving on. 

Faith is the ability to keep working even though you don't know what will happen in the future. The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

That's the lesson I've learned from Stacy Abrams. 

The COVID pandemic is disrupting my life. My family plans and my work plans are always changing because of COVID. At the beginning of the year, I was preparing to celebrate 20 years of medical clowning at Childrens' Healthcare of Atlanta. Now, I haven't been in the hospital in Atlanta since March. Most of my work has been cancelled or postponed. No one knows when this will be back to normal or what the new normal will be. I will follow the example of Stacy Abrams. I will continue to have faith and keep moving forward.

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