The Presence of God and His Disciples

Most understand that God is with us when we struggle, yet sometimes forget He is with us at all times. We do not turn to Him enough unless we are in crisis. We sometimes don’t recall that God’s presence is all around us in the wonders of nature and in the goodness within people we interact with in the day-to-day.

Our most positive and long lasting influences come from love and for me that came from my late mother. My mother is with the Lord and by extension, she is His disciple. When God is present in my life, there are many times she is at his side and there as well. When I am kind, my mother is there. When I am loving, my mother is there. When I am demanding for the right reasons, she is there as well.

I have had professional successes in the past, but nothing compares to the opportunity presented by the Lord to give back that led me to take nearly a year off from 2002-2003. It took years to understand that my personal sacrifices in giving back to help many thousands of seniors and caregivers was my greatest Blessing. The Lord put me in an amazing position to give back then, as well as surrounded me with other disciples. That time off spent working in patient advocacy hurt me and my family financially. So, I started over. My business evolved from mostly just surviving and has come full circle with opportunities over the last months and into last year. As a developer of senior living/housing, it requires me to think and act like an architect, engineer (from Traffic to Environmental to Civil and more), CPA, MBA and attorney (from Real Estate to Governance to Land Use).

Gene Bradfield worked for and with me for almost 17 years, although only part time during the last few years. Only 54, he passed away just before Christmas of 2012 after years of decreasing health. Since he was teenager, he was a very involved member of his church. He was a kind, soft spoken, very large man who literally couldn’t hurt a fly. He was a man of God.

He was schooled and worked as an attorney with such great faith that included an expectation that man is inherently good. He sometimes struggled to prepare the best language in legal contracts in anticipation of the opposite as a principle of practicing law. Hence, I often got a second opinion on documents he prepared. For years, including when we took on the State of California on behalf of nursing home residents and caregivers, he was my intermittently my left and right hand. We both sacrificed and didn’t get paid for our work that time, but we both knew we were somehow chosen for a greater purpose. We never discussed that at that time, but we knew.

Gene was also very smart, straight A’s all through high school, college and law school. I learned from him in so many ways. He softened my sometimes edgy side and helped me learn how to write better in business and with a legal tilt when needed. Saturday, I prepared two complicated legal documents. I faxed them to an attorney for review. He had two small comments, saying how great they were a couple times and seemingly embarrassed he did not have more to say.

After this call I thought of Gene and how he was with me in this task and in so many ways every day, not just in his influence of legal knowledge, but his kindness and grace – things I greatly underappreciated when he was physically around. I thanked the Lord for Gene’s presence in my life, in addition to the Lord’s presence. I also thanked the Lord for His disciples here on earth and in heaven, and for those that remain with us for all the right and righteous reasons.

April 23, 2013