“Amazing! Truly amazing. This is the first time in at least ten years that Loma Linda University has heard such an inspirational message! The 4,000 in attendance commended Jonathan’s powerful and authentic message with a standing ovation and lines of people wanting to share their personal story after his address to the audience. Simply put, amazing!”
–Loma Linda University, CA
“This is a wonderful, warm and inspiring book that will encourage and motivate you to succeed no matter what happens.”
–Brian Tracey, Author,
Maximum Achievement
“Jonathan Craig brought down the house with his profound and insational messages at the First International HIV and AIDS Conference at Andrews University. We are proud to be affiliated with his organization.”
–Adventist News
“Love the book! It brings back lovely memories of our talks. I love that with prayer and faith, a walk with God is hilted. I need to work on Secret #6. Love you and thank you for all you do for me and others.”
–David Thomas
You Are the Reason
A Survivors Guide
to Ultimate Strength
Featuring the Seven Steps to Healthy Living
You Are the Reason
Jonathan Craig
Published by Borderline Publishing at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Jonathan Craig
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I want to thank my mother who I phone every morning to discuss life and shoot the breeze. To my sisters who have always been there when I needed to laugh and have a great time. My best friend John who inspired me to take the leap of faith in anything I do, become or have. Thank you to Jeffrey for believing in my dreams. And to Beth and Annette for thirty-one years of friendship!
There are many experiences that inspire me to continue moving forward with life and people who I’ve met along the journey who I could say thank you too. Just know, if you are in my life and we have touched each others’ souls, we are friends always and you are deeply loved.
May life bring you happiness and joy as we work each day together to live inspired lives!
—Jonathan Craig
When we come together as
one through connecting our purpose, we then harmonize within the
world and become enlightened.
—Jonathan Craig
Contents
Creating Something Out of Nothing
Money & Possessions: Need It or Want It
Faith: Demonstrations of God at Work
Seven Secrets to Healthy Living
You, Me and the Power of the Moment
You are the reason. You are the reason I wrote this book because you must understand the power you have to change the world around you—through understanding who you are and the unique gifts you’ve been given. But before I can delve into my philosophy, I want to take you to the beginning of my search. Back to a day I will never forget…
I was 17 years old and I woke up feeling like I had been hit by a Mack Truck. I could barely lift my head from the pillow. When I attempted to move to my side I realized that the skin on my stomach felt like it was on fire. I then rolled back onto my back and pulled my shirt up to see what appeared to be a rash. The rash was comprised of small blister-like bumps with puss in them. I had never experienced pain like this before.
I called my mom up into my room and showed her what was going on. “Hmm. ... It looks like shingles,” she said as she examined my stomach. I had no idea what shingles were; I just new that I wanted to get rid of them.
“Mom, I feel awful.”
She felt my forehead. “You definitely have a fever,” she said. “I am going to call our family doctor and make an appointment for you to see him.”
Once she had secured an appointment, I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. As the warm water hit my body, I remember feeling that I was going to fall over. I had never been so exhausted in all of my life. Forgetting that I had the menacing rash on my stomach, I ran a bar of soap over it and the burning intensified, as though I had just had a cigarette pressed against my bare skin. I quickly attempted to rinse it off and the warm water only intensified my discomfort. “Ouch!” I yelped. The pain was almost unbearable.
After getting dressed, I walked down to the garage and climbed into my truck and drove to the doctor’s office. The thoughts racing through my head were fairly mundane and routine, mere musings about seeing a doc who would diagnose my ailments, prescribe some pills and send me home to rest. I was the epitome of a teenager who wanted a quick fix so that I could get back to my social life.
Once inside of the doc’s office, I signed in and then went back to see our family practitioner, who was also a close family friend. He asked for me to pull my shirt off to show him the rash. I grimaced as the t-shirt grazed my skin. He looked closely at the area of suspect.
“Hmm...Well, it does look like shingles, Craig.”
“Shingles?” I had a puzzled look on my face.
“Yes. They are somewhat like chicken pox,” he explained. “But this virus is caused by a very troubled immune system, and that concerns me because you are a youngster.” Now the doc had a concerned look on his face, but I was sure it was just a look he gave to all of his patients. I didn’t think much of this statement. I just wanted something to take it away, so I waited for the remedy.
“Are you under a lot of stress?”
I didn’t know how to respond. Stress? Sure. Weren’t we all under stress? Not quite knowing what I should say, I just sat there with a blank look on my face.
“Craig. I’d like to run a few tests. I’m concerned about your immune system. One of the tests I’m going to run is an HIV test,” he explained. “I’m sure it’s not that, but I want to cover all of our bases.”
HIV was new to me. I had heard that the disease was gaining ground in the U.S. and many diagnosed weren’t fairing too well. My understanding of the disease was very limited, but I did know that if a person came down with the disease they would likely die in a short span of time. And I wasn’t ready for any death sentence; I had my whole life ahead of me.
The doc pricked my arm with a needle and withdrew blood. I turned my head as he did this the sight of both of them made my stomach queasy. My exhaustion was heightened with the added stress of a needle jabbed through my skin.
I left the clinic following my appointment and drove to the pharmacy to get the cream the doc prescribed for me. Then, I went home to rest. I’ll never forget how wonderful it felt as I rubbed the cooling cream over the annoying shingles. I exhaled with relief and fell into my bed to sleep the rest of the day away.
A few days later I began to feel better, but stayed home to fully recover. The phone rang and my mom answered.
“Hi, doctor,” I heard my mom say from the kitchen as I sat watching TV in the family room. I didn’t hear anything else. She was silent for a good three to five minutes. Finally, she walked into the family room with a look I had never seen on her face. She was as white as a ghost. My stomach shot into my throat as I looked at her.
“What did he say?” I asked nervously.
“He’s on the phone still and wants to talk to you.”
“What is it?”
“He’ll explain it to you.”
I stumbled into the kitchen, hoping that it wasn’t anything major.
“Hi, doc,” I said as I put the phone to my ear.
“Hi Craig, I wanted to update you on your test results.”
He was silent for a few seconds.
My heart skipped a few beats.
“Craig. Umm ... I just informed your mother that you tested positive for HIV. I’m sorry to tell you that.”
Silence again.
I looked up at my mom and saw tears in her eyes. The room spun around me as if I were riding a runaway merry-go-round. For a moment, I felt that I had left my body and didn’t quite know how to find it again. Pure adrenaline whipped through my limbs and left me breathless.
“Craig?…Craig?” I finally realized the doc was talking.
“Yeah?”
“You OK?”
“I’m fine,” I responded. What was I to say? I couldn’t find a response that made sense.
That moment has been the most monumental in my life. I liken it to being pulled from a car by a stranger and held at gunpoint. Breathless and filled with fear, I was forced to explore the possibility that I may not live to see another day.
Chosen
“God created you as a unique individual. You have within you an authentic greatness all your own. Use it; don’t waste it! You waste it when you try to be someone else for the simple reason that you are not someone else.”
— Dr. Maxwell Maltz
You are chosen. That simple message marks the beginning of a specific journey, one in which only you can take. Far too many people wander through life without purpose or meaning. Perhaps it’s because they simply never believed they were chosen for anything.
But I know differently, mostly because I chose to believe the better half of the two sides of the adoption coin: I wasn’t wanted or I was chosen. It was something my adoptive parents drilled into me during my formative years. And I still to this day haven’t stopped believing it.
I was just one-day old when my adoptive parents took me home. My birth mother gave birth to two children and was raising them in Chicago before she moved to California. Not long after her move, a long walk to the doctor’s office (she had no car) based on her suspicion that she had the flu resulted in a much different diagnosis: she was pregnant with me. Dating two men at the time, she didn’t bother trying to figure out who the real father was, so she asked each of them for $100 to have the baby.
Eager to arrive, I came into the world early as a preemie weighing in at a shade over five pounds. My adoptive parents were unable to have children and were immediately approached about adopting me. They came down to the hospital to see me—and a day later, I went home with them.
A Change In Course
God always has a plan and we don’t know what that plan is—until it’s time. Looking back on the incredible change in direction that one moment had on my entire life is truly amazing. My birth mother’s life has never been very stable. She has battled many ailments—heart disease and throat cancer to name a couple—and a heavy addiction to smoking. It’s difficult for me to even imagine how different of a person I would be had that been the direction my life would’ve taken compared to the one it did take.
Instead of growing up without a father and not even knowing who my dad was, the story of my life was drastically different. Though there was no DNA passed down to me from my adoptive father, I still managed to grasp his love for creativity. He was a builder—and it explained how my interest in LEGO color coordination and design grew into a passion for creatively crafting my own designs later in life. (Little did I know that my biological family was also creative, something I didn’t discover until I was well into my 30s.)
I grew up in a home with two parents who raised us in a religious tradition that shunned drinking, smoking and various other indulgences. At times, our home was full of support, love and acceptance, all key ingredients I needed to face some of the adversity that would eventually enter my life. Without them, I’m not quite sure how I would’ve survived.
Before you get the impression that my Orphan Annie-esque life was something of a fairy-tale ending, let me squelch that idea. I did grow up with an amazing mother. She was caring, compassionate, diplomatic, loyal, refined, genuine and beautiful. But I also grew up with a father who seemed to be on the same wavelength as my mother—until you lived with him. He was abusive, both mentally and physically. He was abused both physically and mentally growing up and obviously didn’t do much to break that abusive cycle in his family. He repeatedly told me I would never amount to anything in life and I would never be successful.
As a child, he had nothing, which pushed him to be so driven that he achieved many things beyond his comprehension, thus providing a comfortable lifestyle for his family. Yet life continued to be a mixed bag of blessings and unbreakable generational curses for him. Through it all, he struggled with the tension of who he was with who he wanted to be. Sometimes, the reality of who he was created a harsh environment for me.
Who knows which course would’ve been less bumpy or more effective at molding and shaping me into the man God has called me to be. After experiencing one and peering into what life with my birth mother could have been, neither have the makings of Easy Street; however, I truly believe the path God sent me down is the one that was best for me.
No matter which path you find yourself traveling, you must realize that it is the one that God has for you at this moment and he is with you. In the midst of our pain and suffering, we find blessings and experience life in a way that molds and shapes us forever. Gregg Levoy, author of Callings, writes, “A key is made for one purpose and one purpose only. To fit a lock. Not just any lock. One lock. Your lock!” Only you can unlock the joy that comes in your journey through this life by accepting what life brings your way and facing it head on.
Knowing the Truth
While some parents hide from their kids the fact that they were adopted, mine were forthcoming with my adoption. I was reminded often that I was adopted, but only for the purposes of letting me know that I was chosen, special, unique and a gift. Despite my father’s abusive tendencies, he let me know in no uncertain terms that he and my mother chose me and that I was special to him. As a result, the fact that I was adopted never bothered me like it does others. I was confident in whom I was and secure in what my parents thought about me.
However, that didn’t prevent me from wondering about my birth mother and the rest of my biological family. What would life had been like if I had stayed with them? I wondered. I also wanted to understand a little bit more about why I think the way I do, why I do what I do, and why I collect things. I wanted to know, “What is it about the internal Jonathan Craig that I did not learn from my adoptive parents?” These questions began to haunt me and I decided I must make an effort to answer them.
About this same time, I began writing down a number of things I wanted to do in life, my life’s master plan. I added meeting my birth mother to the list. Within a year of writing it down, I met her through a bizarre set of circumstances.
Not long after I wrote this down, I interviewed to be the host of a TV show and was one of the two finalists. I didn’t get the job, but my hint of success encouraged me to continue looking for something else which could put me in front of a camera. In my search, I stumbled across a show that was geared toward adoption, reuniting daughters and fathers. I thought, What about mothers and sons? and I decided to contact the show.
I emailed the show my story and received a call from a producer who told me that they decided to interview me even though the show wasn’t geared toward my story. They put a camera in front of me and asked me to share. For 45 minutes, I cried and yelled and screamed. It so moved them that they called me back a week and a half later and said, “We’re not going to air your story, but we still want to help you find your birth mother.” I was totally amazed at the generosity of these complete strangers.
Ten days later, I received a call from a private investigator in Florida who told me, “We’ve found your birth mother and she’s in Arizona.” Some representatives from the show phoned her and said, “Someone is trying to reach you.” Immediately, she responded, “It’s my son, isn’t it?” Then she said she wanted to speak with me. So we set up a time to go out to Arizona to meet her. Her name is Gail.
When you ask God for something specifically, it will always be in God’s timing, when he is ready to give it to you. It’s all about when he knows you’re ready to handle it.
For me, this reality hit home when I found myself on this trip to meet my birth mother. I had goosebumps as I arrived, realizing that when I was 35 I helped design a restaurant across the street from where she worked as a waitress and my birth father had worked as an executive chef. Had I met her when I was in my mid-30s, I wouldn’t have been able to handle this encounter. I was young, worldly, fearful—unable to acknowledge with compassion and understanding the reality of where I came from. But, here I was a few years later, more mature and ready and willing to meet her.
I remember pulling up to Gail’s trailer home in Arizona and not knowing what to think. I was actually stunned at the humble home in which she lived, but I thought I could handle just about anything. It was humbling to realize that I could have ended up with a similar life. I wondered which direction my life would have taken. I probably wouldn’t have known any difference, yet the opportunities that would have been handed to would have been quite different and living more difficult in many ways.