Are You an Amazon?

Several years ago, I looked deeply at my life and what I had already accomplished. Given that most of us, male or female, are encouraged not to ‘toot our horn’ (read … brag), it was a difficult exercise.

What had I done with my life? How had my life impacted to world around me? In all truth, I’d never really thought about it. At the time, we were about to attack Iraq, and I felt that my life’s work was threatened because of it.

You see, I’m a mother.

Yes, I’ve run businesses, established new product lines, set up systems for getting product out to the world, managed numerous staffs, and a load of other “important” activities including coaching, training, and teaching others how to do their businesses, and lives effectively—well at least these activities were ones that I got paid for—so they were certainly a great part of my consideration as to what I’d accomplished. Thing was, as I investigated what I’d really done that was of the utmost value—it was the work I’d never earned a penny for or been given any accolades for it’s positive impact. The work of raising my family.

My youngest child wasn’t even a teenager when the war started—but my older kids were certainly of the age where they could be called up to “serve their country”. I was sickened. How could I possibly allow any of my children to be sacrificed in that way? How could any mother? Yet, as the months wore on, I saw numbers of mothers kiss their children goodbye—maybe for the last time—as they were deployed to a far away country in the Middle East.

That imagery led me to my question, “What had my life meant, so far? What had I accomplished?” Then, a bigger question emerged. “What could I do moving forward to affect change in the most positive way?”

Not long after I posed those questions to myself, I dreamt of a woman. She was older, with white hair and steely blue eyes. She looked at me at said, “Inspire the Amazon within”. Then she gestured up above her, and I saw the sky filled with women’s faces—all expectant and eager for something that I would provide for them. I knew it was prophetic, but I didn’t understand fully what I was being called to do. So, I dug into some books and started to research the Amazons.