I wretched over and over, and then fell back, completely exhausted, onto the bathroom floor. I closed my eyes and lay perfectly still, attempting to will my heaving stomach into peace.
Several minutes passed,, and I ventured to open my eyes. The tile on the floor had a pattern, and I methodically concentrated on tracing the grout closest to me. Anything to avoid the intense nausea.
After a bit, I slowly got to my knees and crawled slowly to the bedroom. Another rest, and then the great effort to heave myself up onto the bed. Once again, I grabbed for a bucket before attempting a perfectly still position.
Weakly, I lay on the coverlet of the bed, and my mind traced the events that had brought me here.
Several days ago, I had gotten what I thought was the flu. It got worse and worse. Eventually, the sweet lady who babysat my children came and got them, and then one of my other friends packed me up and took me to the doctor. But they couldn't find anything wrong, and they wrote it off as a bad case of the flu. Still, I couldn't stop the awful wrenching, even though there was nothing left to bring up.
My friend took me to her house, and now I had been here a day...or was it two? and I was still sick on my stomach, with no apparent cause, other than the "flu."
Charity, my Princess House leader, kept calling to see how I was, and I knew she was worried.
I missed my little ones, but I was too sick to do anything about it. I realized that if the situation didn't change soon, I was headed for an IV, and I was sure my friend knew it too.
Even while I thought it, she came through the door. "Do you want to come and rest in the living room awhile on the recliner?" she invited.
I painstakingly made my way to the recliner, and eventually my stomach stopped heaving, and I lay motionless for a long time. I eventually fell asleep, and slept a good while. But even after I woke, I did not dare to move an inch.
Suddenly, my friend came through the door with a strange looking drink in her hand. "Do not ask me what is in this drink," she commanded. "I need you to lie very still and drink this as much as you can."
And so, moving as little as I could, I took a sip of the weird looking mixture, and immediately made a face. "If you want me to drink this, why didn't you at least make it taste good?' I croaked.
She giggled, then in a take-charge tone, ordered, "Drink as much as you can, Glenda."
That horrible stuff (she never really told me just exactly what all was in it!!) was the turning point with my nausea. I slowly turned the corner, and then spent several days convalescing. Finally I was well enough to go home, and take care of my little ones.
A day or two after I was back at home, my phone rang. It was Charity. We chatted a bit, and she asked me how I was.
"Did you ever figure out what was wrong with you?" she asked.
"No." I answered, and promptly began to fret about the parties I had to cancel, and the much needed paycheck I was going to miss because of my illness.
" Well, I am pretty sure that I know what was wrong with you," she said. "I think you are working way too hard. I think this schedule, plus all of the stress, has caught up to you."
"You probably are right," I agreed with her.
"Glenda, you know what you need to do? You need to build a team...you need to become a Princess House Leader."
I winced. This was something I had never wanted to do. I didn't want the extra responsibility. However, as Charity once again showed me that Princess House would give me a commission on what my team sold, I realized that the financial loss of being sick wouldn't have been quite so heavy if I had a team. She was still talking.
"Right now, you are like a hamster on a wheel, Glenda. When you stop working, everything else stops too. You've got to get a team under you..." and she proceeded to, once again, outline the qualifications to being a team leader.
I really thought about it, and then I decided she probably was right. I began to pray that God would send me not only consultants on my team, but consultants who wanted to be on my team. Consultants who wanted the paycheck. Consultants who loved the product.
I began to ask guests at my parties if they wanted to become a Princess House Consultants. I found a couple of people who consented, but they never sold anything (something that I know today is very common, but back then, I was very disappointed.) But eventually the day came when a determined young lady signed up to be a consultant, and she did very well. I slowly added a few more people to my tiny unit, and eventually, I became a Princess House Unit Organizer.
That Christmas, I took my first ever professional family photo without EJ. My heart throbbed with sorrow, but I looked resolutely into that camera, and I smiled. My children were by my side, and I was healthy and well.
I never got that strange sickness again, and when I look back, I believe God used it to nudge me into Leadership. I also believe that Charity was right. That I had been working too hard, and I was living under a lot of stress...and sometimes all of that takes a toll on our bodies, and this was just how I reacted.
As I grew into the leadership responsibilities, I learned many things. However, I developed a very close relationship with my consultants, and to my joyous surprise, they began to become a second family to me. I also learned that a true mark of a leader is to help someone else to success, even if it's hard, and even if it requires sacrifice.
Today, it is my greatest joys to sign up a brand new consultant and help her to sell $1,500 in both of her first two months in business. It's sometimes a hard feat, because many women only sign up for the kit, or to just put a party or two in a year, and that's the beauty of it...for the business to be flexible. At the end of the day, that is what appeals to most moms & wives, and I am glad that I have this to offer them.
Also, this business is a revolving door...people come, and then they go. Most of them sell a little, and then move on. I have learned that approximately 1 out of every 7- 10 consultants that sign up actually does well. So the search is ever on to add new members to the Joseph Team.
I named my Team, The Joseph Gems...and we have Emeralds & Rubies, and all kinds of precious Jewels here on my team, and it's my joy to be with them. To love them. To lead them to whatever success looks like in their eyes. To support them as best I can.
However, in doing that as a leader, I learned still another difficult truth: you can't do the work for your consultants. There's always some consultants who expect success to fall into their laps, and then there's others that struggle with jealousy...they expect to be as successful as I am without putting in the hard, grinding work of years. There is no elevator to success...each adult consultant has to take the stairs. I had to learn to be unapologetic about my success. I had to learn to let go and be ok when my consultants stumble, or when they decide that it's too hard to be successful. I also had to learn to make decisions, to call people out if they do not obey company rules, and to sometimes, let the chips fall. Not easy for me to learn that....hardest thing in the world.
All in all, God has been faithful and good. And when I had Covid and nearly died from it in Dec. of 2021, it was the income from my hardworking team that paid the clinic bills and saw me through. I know my business came from God--the dream He sent me was Truth, and I am ever so grateful that I didn't give up--I would have given up One Day Too Soon.
Love Always,
Glenda
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