Set inclination aside and do something different

Life Lessons

August 4, 2010

By David Key Lake Oconee Breeze Lake Oconee Breeze Wed Aug 04, 2010, 08:00 AM EDT

LAKE OCONEE — As a student, fashion designer Sandra Garratt was given a project to design clothing that would go against her natural inclinations — clothes that she didn’t like. She came up with a line of economical, one-size-fits-all, modular clothing for women. Garratt moved on to a series of jobs in the fashion industry, but she kept thinking about those clothes she'd designed. They intrigued her enough that she eventually began producing them for a boutique in Dallas. Several business people saw promise in Garratt’s clothes, and in 1986 they invested the money to help her start a nationwide chain of shops. The investment paid off. Within a few years, more than $100 million of Garratt’s clothes had been sold, and she had made millions in royalties. All because she put her natural inclinations aside and investigated something different.

That is a good lesson for us. Try something different. Don’t always go with the comfortable. God might be trying to stretch you in ways you are not even aware. Wishing you much love and much light.

—The Rev. David W. Key, director of the Baptist Studies Program, is involved in recruitment, admissions, student life, counseling, placement, and development functions for Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. He teaches in the Contextual Education program. He is the founding pastor of the Lake Oconee Community Church at Reynolds Plantation. Contact him at (404) 727-6350 or dkey@emory.edu. His

column appears weekly in this space.

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