Category: Gifts

CZD Feature Student of the Month: Dredon Lackey

~ Jonathan Clark ~ Leave a comment

In life, God blesses each of us with wonderful gifts… things we do exceptionally well with less effort than most.  Since we are not born with an instruction manual that tells us what those are, we can spend a significant stretch of our journeys searching for what we do best.  In fact, many of us don’t discover our gifts until the mid to late portion of our lives, and those who do know their gifts often don’t develop or pursue them.  As a result, many people go to their graves without ever knowing what they were capable of doing.  However, there are a select few individuals who have a finger on the pulse of what they are meant to do well before the rest of us.  By the age of nine, Dredon Lackey had already...

Coulda Woulda Shoulda

~ Jonathan Clark ~ Leave a comment

Much of my life has been spent playing it safe.  However, right before I met my wife, I made a decision to step outside my comfort zone and live my life free of regrets.  Things that I normally would not have done in a million years, I did.  Had it not been for that change, my wife and I would not be together today. In order to get myself in a state where I actually had the desire to step outside my norm, I imagined what it would be like to reach the end of my days and reflect back on my life if I kept playing it safe.  This exercise gave me the perspective and motivation to make a change. Regrets are typically the result of living life based on fears and the expectations of others as opposed to the results we truly want.  Fortunately, even though we cannot change the past, we have the chance to change the present and future based on what we have learned.  However, we must remember that eventually our time here will be up, so we shouldn't take tomorrow for granted. I wrote the poem Coulda Woulda Shoulda to express what it would be like to live a life of fear and eventually run out of time.

Cra-Z-Dreams Feature Student of the Month: Ryanne Foster

~ Jonathan Clark ~ Leave a comment

Cra-Z Dreamer of the Month:  Ryanne Foster Sometimes you meet a person who has a light… an aura that glows softly with goodness and compassion.  It’s not forced or calculated but sewn into the fabric of who they are… as much a part of them as their eyes, mouth, hands, and feet.  The first time I met Ryanne was at a career fair at the local high school.  We were promoting our Cra-Z-Dreams life skills programs and she asked for some information.  She later attended one of our Love Yourself First workshops for girls.  Her warm spirit was undeniable and immediately stood out to our instructors.  We absolutely loved having her in class because she affected the energy and helped put the other girls at ease as we talked about self-esteem, self-love, and empowerment.  We later decided that she would be an excellent choice as our May feature student of the month.

Broken Rulers: Determining Identity and Value by Comparison

~ Jonathan Clark ~ Leave a comment

The Real “Mr. Big Stuff” How we define things and people in life can often be so relative. One Saturday I took my wife and kids out to dinner.  We had placed our orders and were waiting quite impatiently for our food to arrive.  We had not eaten since breakfast, so everyone was more than ready to chow down.  When you’re hungry, waiting on your food at a restaurant seems to take forever.  We found ourselves...