At some point you will undoubtedly encounter a challenge. Perhaps even today you are facing one or more. Different people react differently to challenges. Some get flustered and don’t know what they should do, others are somewhat confident they can meet the challenge, and still others think they can resolve it straight away. There are big problems and small. Health problems can be huge. Financial problems can wear you out too.
When rising to meet a challenge keep in mind that old adage ” Realizing that you have nothing to fear because you cannot fail is important. Even when facing a tough challenge, it always seems impossible to resolve until it’s conquered.”
I lived this scenario out. We had 13 employees one time that embezzled close to a million dollars from our company. Not only that they falsified financial reports and erased my general ledger. Further they didn’t pay payroll taxes. Almost a million dollars’ worth of inventory had been stolen. I owed close to $300,000 to vendors and checks were bouncing right and left. My phone was ringing off the hook with angry creditors.
My accountant, my banker, and other friends and acquaintances told me to throw in the towel and take bankruptcy. I thought that would be a cowardly path to take. If I was going down it wouldn’t be without a fight. I figured that creditors would not sue me as long as I was making payments. I wrote all them and reassured them that they would be repaid every cent provided that none of them sued me. I was not going to pay interest or late charges because what happened to me with the embezzlement. I told them they would receive a payment every month of some amount. I told them if I was sued I would take bankruptcy and they would receive pennies on the dollar (if anything). Further I prioritized my debt and varied the amounts that I paid but made sure everyone got something even if it was five dollars but UPS, (It was a mail order business) would be paid and the light bill to keep the lights on.
It took seven long years to repay all my debt, but I avoided lawsuits despite the bluster. Teresa managed to get a list from the bank, and we ended up getting a refund on our taxes. I laid off all but 18 of my employees some needed to go others were good employees that I had hoped I could keep. It was a valuable lesson I learned and admittedly I learned it the hard way. But hard lessons are that ones that will never be forgotten.
When I had my accident recently I was in bad shape. I had a severe brain bleed that was killing me. My family could have just abandoned me – They didn’t! Two brain surgeries later I’m almost as good as I was before the accident. I still have a slight tremor in my right hand but otherwise I’m in good shape. I can walk, talk, my speech and memory are like new. In fact, my chief surgeon said that I had been “touch and go” for a while and was very close too dying. He added I had a miraculous recovery and he had never seen anybody that had their health restored that quickly.
If you face big problems I hope you will read this and be inspired to keep fighting it with all you have. God doesn’t want you to throw in the towel and He will reward those who don’t quit.
1 Corinthians 9:24
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.