Be A Booster
A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.
Author Unknown
The quote stuck like velcro to my mind and heart last weekend as our Pastor read it.
He encouraged us to be boosters.
Just as a rocket has boosters that operate in parallel with the main engines for the first part of the flight, adding additional thrust for the rocket to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth…
The boosters also assist in guiding the entire vehicle during the initial ascent.
In due time, they separate and the rocket is on its way to find it’s landing.
As he described this process, I reminisced about my life boosters.
As a young woman in my twenties, I had two women who walked alongside me and taught me how to grow in my faith, how to pray out loud and how to listen and persevere through trials and heartache. For years, they were my boosters. They helped launch me into a move and new life from New Mexico to Chicago.
Next came the memories of my pregnancy with quadruplets, when my doctor told me at my week 27 checkup, I was going straight to the hospital.
Doctors office to hospital bed immediately, for full bedrest.
My sister immediately flew in from New Mexico to Baltimore where I was living and thinking she was going to help me in the delivery that week, ended up staying with me for five straight weeks, right into delivery and week 32.
She created a routine for us to read, watch a show daily, eat well, bring me my food cravings, wash my hair and laugh. She also had been trained as a mid-wife assistant, so she was very knowledgeable to support me in my journey to the unknown. She even made a way to get the nurses to wheel my hospital bed out to the rooftop so I could see the sun.
And on the day of my delivery, she gave me a crash course in the Lamaze technique!
Before and during my delivery, she was my booster.
The day came for her to return home as I found my landing with my four newborns.
It was an intrinsic “calling” as a mom, to be their booster. I did not call it that, but now I see what a beautiful picture that creates for my heart and mind to stay anchored and focused.
To persevere, ask for help and embrace with joy every part of my motherhood journey.
24 years of later, those newborns are in the process of launching out to new jobs, graduate school and a new home in a new state, separating from one another.
Each one had seasons where they have been a booster for one or the other. Never giving up, encouraging and calling out strengths, asking hard questions and challenging lies that tried to sabotage growth.
Deeply bonded, also knowing how to let go and allow.
I am in awe of their natural ability to boost.
I am also in awe and full of gratitude to all my life boosters who have helped me see my strengths and gifts and had the courage to point me in a direction I may have never seen or imagined. The list is very long.
My personal challenge in this season of life is to watch, listen and pray for more individuals who need a booster and step into that role with power and joy.
So the “booster” legacy can continue.
And the “Light” will never grow dim.
I pray the eyes of your heart by enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance.
Ephesians 1:18