Watershed Moments

To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, the light that is shining in them.
~Jean Vanier

During our many years counseling, Michael and Tom have each kept a special file marked ‘Encouragements’. In those special files, we have notes of gratitude, letters of appreciation, and messages about how we changed someone’s life for the better. Those are watershed moments in others lives where we gave an answer, provided hope, and maybe turned their lives around–watershed moments.

We each also have filed away in our own minds, moments in our individual lives and in our relationship together where others have done the same for us–provided us with a new direction, encouraged us with their affirmation, shed light in a situation in which we hadn’t seen before–watershed moments.

We both love reading stories about great people who have done great things, to understand why or how these great things happened. A story that impressed us both was one we recently read about Abraham Lincoln on the day the American Civil War had ended. When the South’s General Lee surrendered to the North’s General Grant, thousands of people rushed to the White House in Washington, D.C., clamoring for President Lincoln to deliver a victory speech. The crowd was bloodthirsty. The Northern victors wanted their president to deliver words vilifying their vanquished enemies in the South. They wanted condemnation. They were not interested in graciousness or diplomacy. But instead, wanted the losers to be disparaged by the president.

Lincoln knew better. He understood that to unify a nation, to heal its wounds, to put it on a forward moving path, he needed to give a speech calling for reconciliation, forgiveness, and consideration for all. He instinctively knew that to heap more scorn on those who had lost the war would only hinder, profoundly, the healing of the breach between the two sides and that the nation could never move forward until that healing began to occur. So Lincoln refused to give a speech that night, knowing that a hastily given, ill-conceived oration would do more damage than good. So he promised the crowd, if they came back the next night, he would speak to the nation, giving him time to carefully prepare his words. That became a watershed moment in not only Lincoln’s presidency, but in the survival and strengthening of the United States.

We all need, and have, watershed moments in our lives. Moments that stand out defining who we are, what we will become, and the legacy we will leave behind. Today Michael and Tom had a watershed moment in their professional lives together. As we continue to develop our professional partnership, there have been moments of anxiety along the way. How would things work? Would our work be successful? Would our work resonate with others? In a luncheon meeting today with someone we both respect very much, we found that the resonance was there–a watershed moment–that gives us courage, hope and strength.

What are the watershed moments for you? Remember them. During the dark and difficult times that inevitably occur for us all, it is in remembering those watershed moments that we are given new energy and life again.