don’t let anyone else hold the pen. – Harley Davidson
It doesn’t matter how 2012 ended.
It does not matter if you kept last year’s resolutions or not.
You have the power to decide where to go next. You always have.
I usually end the year with an inventory of some kind. I list what went well, what did not go well, what I learned, what I still need to learn and then once finished, I declare the year complete. 2012 was a year of challenges and great growth for me. Instead of making resolutions, I followed the advice of several writer friends. I chose to live a great story (Donald Miller) and picked a word for the year to focus on. 2012 turned out to be one of the best years I’ve had in a while. I even chose to follow Ken Davis’s advice and live a year that is Fully Alive and what a difference that makes. Living a great story Fully Alive is not an easy road — you get skinned knees and bruised hearts along the way. It requires honesty with yourself and others. It’s hard work. Sometimes you say as many goodbyes as you do hellos and that is okay.
Some highlights from 2012
My youngest graduated high school and started college as well as a part-time job. — He has epilepsy and a great deal of my life and his childhood has revolved around taking care of him and being his advocate. Now I get to watch him spread his wings and I could not be more proud. (My oldest is in his 4th year of college with one more to go — my life is changing fast)
I’m in two movies as a paid extra, Cowgirls N Angels and So This is Christmas — I am at a loss of words trying to explain the emotional impact of seeing myself on the big screen had on me. The best I can come up with is “it rocked!” I want to do more of that.
I rode the Tulsa Tour De Cure for the first time and will definitely raise the challenge bar and do it again.
The political climate caused some attrition in my friendships. Sorry to see that happen, learning to let go.
Made new friends.
I said goodbye to the church I’ve attended for ten years and hello to a new one that has women’s ministries and bible studies, two things that are important to me. This was a hard choice, but one that needed to be made.
In 2013, I plan to ride more, participate in the Route 66 Marathon, return to Nashville for the CCA Conference. My word for the year is Resolve and I plan to continue writing and living a story that keeps me alive.
Random Thoughts:
It’s easier to tell the truth the first time than to have to remember a lie.
Hidden things have a way of coming back to bite you — deal with your closet before it deals with you. (Just trust me on this one.)
You can’t have everything you want.
Don’t take what isn’t yours.
Don’t do something permanently stupid just because you are temporarily upset. – Temper your temper.
Always strive to leave people and things better than you found them.
Own who you are.
Don’t blame others for your choices.
Try new things.
Fail as often as you need to before you succeed.
Gratitude is a choice.
Write your own story.
Find your catalyst and be the person worthy of love, trust, and respect that looks back at you in the mirror every day.
“I’m not a control freak, I just want everyone to be happy. Oh, and like me. Yes, I definitely want people to like me. Why? Because that’s the only way I can like myself.” — me
Oh yah, no control issues here. Eye rolling is allowed.
I may “waller in defeat” from time to time, as my friend Tonya would say, but I don’t stay there.
Nobody, I don’t care who they are, or how famous and together we might think they are, leads a charmed life.
Everyone has problems.
Everyone has choices.
That’s why I like the Full Circle link so much. Here’s a guy, who hit rock bottom 19 years ago doing a benefit ride for the very place he got sober. I think that’s cool. I think that takes courage.
What does courage look like to you?
Is it public speaking?
Skydiving?
Saying no when you really need to even if it means disappointing someone?
Or is it risking feeling selfish and realizing that the greatest gift we can give this world is to be the best us we can be?
One of my favorite devotional pages says :
March 26 in The Little Blue Book ONE DAY at a TIME in AL-ANON:
Why is it so hard to admit we are powerless over alcohol, as the First Step suggests we do? All of us have heard and shared in discussions at Al-Anon meetings as to whether this should be interpreted as “alcohol” or the “alcoholic.” We have no power over either one. No one can control the insidious effect of alcohol or its power to destroy the graces and decencies of life. No one can control the alcoholic’s compulsion to drink. But we do have a power, derived from God, and that is the power to change our own lives. Acceptance does not mean submission to a degrading situation. It means accepting the fact of a situation and then deciding what we will do about it.
TODAY’S REMINDER
Progress begins when we stop trying to control the uncontrollable and when we go on to correct what we have the right to change. If we accept a situation full of misery and uncertainty, it is no one’s fault but our own. We can do something about it!
“Fighting futility is just a waste of energy, Samantha. Either do something or quit fretting.” – Celebra Tueli
While this particular page refers to alcoholism and alcoholics it can be about so much more. It hurts watching people we love destroy their lives. What causes even greater pain is putting our lives on hold while we wait for everyone else to get it together.
It has taken me a long time to really believe that I am powerless over people, places, and things, meaning I cannot control people or make their choices for them. I cannot control how people see me, or whether or not they like me. Nor can I control the weather, or disease/disabilities. Shoot, I struggle with controlling myself, thinking I can control others is pure ego.
All I have is the power to make the best choices for me.
That’s really where courage begins. Finding the power to make the best choices for ourselves regardless of the choices our loved ones make. This includes our spouses, siblings, friends, and dare I say it adult children.
I’m a firm believer that the power to change can only come from believing in a God that’s bigger than me. For some of us, finding that God takes courage.
My wish today for you and for myself is that we stop right where we are at and know beyond knowing that we can make better choices today than the ones we made yesterday — and then go do it.
Maybe for some of us, that choice is simply the acceptance of knowing the we are loved beyond measure no matter what and acting on that belief.
Fear and desire are two sides to the same coin. – Vis-a-vis my stupid fortune cookie.
We ordered take-out tonight. I love fortune cookies if for no other reason than they make me laugh. (Not that I believe in them, just to clarify they are for fun) And I love Chinese food. double bonus. I do not love the ” fortune” I got tonight and offered to trade. Until I read his anyway. Do you know what his said?
“Engage in group activities that further transformation.”
He chuckled when he read it and then he asked me the rudest question, “So how’s the cycling thing going?”
I didn’t see the trap and lit up like the 4th July. For 1o minutes this man, my soul mate, listened to me talk about this blog and that book and this group and that ride. He stopped me at rides.
“So when are you going?”
“On what?”
“That group ride you’re talking about. When are you going to ride with a group?”
“Oh I’m not ready to ride with a group, there’s too much to learn.”
“Sounds to me you got the right fortune, but you want mine. You can’t have it. “
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll never find what you are looking for in a book. You want the experience without actually having the experience. It can’t happen. Put down the books and just ride. It’s the right next step.”
Busted. He’s right and I know he’s right. The only way I’m going to learn how to ride with a group is by riding with a group. Books aren’t going to teach me that.
My question to you , Do you remember a time where you desired something but were afraid of it at the same time? What did you do?
I am alway amazed at how quickly I can pick up a covering of shame and embarrassment. Or how quickly I can get discouraged and question my own judgement. It doesn’t take much really.
We arrived to the hospital Friday morning bright and early. 5:30 am early, the sun wasn’t even up for heaven’s sake. By 6, I was in my prep room, wearing the funkiest multi-layered purple surgical gown I’ve ever seen in my life and waiting for my nurse to install the IV. I felt horrible. I’ve felt horrible for days and attributed it all to my new-found female issues and could not wait for the surgery to correct everything.
I was prepared for my hysterectomy. I was at that moment emotionally, mentally, and physically psyched. I was also scared, but don’t tell anyone. Fortunately for me my new surgeon had given me vallum for the night before so that I could sleep.
I even spent the day before drinking that colon cleanser stuff that tastes like salt water and makes you do things that, well… should never be spoken of in polite company, that’s all I have to say about that.
Then it happened, the sweetest most cheerful nurse I’ve met in a while came in and started taking my stats and getting me ready. She stuck some thermometer thing in my ear and read the readout — “Oh my! You have a fever!” she exclaimed and stuck the digital readout in my face to show me. It read 37.5 – which of course elevated my heart rate because didn’t realize it was in celsius. I’m thinking at 37.5, I don’t have a fever, I should be a corpse.
Nurse Pam went and got a different thermometer and it read 100.2. Yep I had a fever.
Pam listened to my lungs (I’d been telling her that with all this rain I was having some trouble taking deep breaths) and they sounded clear. So she paged my surgeon, took some blood work and we waited.
And we waited.
20 minutes later my surgeon is at the door and my heart sank. I know what that means – “no surgery for you.”
I wasn’t disappointed to see him, I was relieved, and I was embarrassed about being too sick to operate.
Dr B. spoke in soft tones and tried to reassure me and find out what was going on.. He listened to my lungs and yes, they sounded clear, but then he did something. He had me say the letter “e” while he listened, and then he had me say “EEEEEE” while he listened again. The “e” sounded like an “a” when he listened again. YEP, I have bronchitis in my lower left lung. Not bad, just enough to cause fever and trouble breathing. No surgery for me.
Then he rather quietly stated that “I told you, smoking brings its own complications. I was afraid of something like this. If we operate now, you could get pneumonia. We need to wait.” He was being compassionate and logical.
He didn’t shame me. Didn’t need to. He was just stating facts.
If I could have pulled my purple gown over my head I would have.
I had already spoken to him about my smoking and what I can do to help cut down on complications and he’d told me to either quit or at least cut back as much as I could. I cut back to less than half, but it wasn’t enough. Quitting is the only thing left.
He wrote scripts for a Z-Pak and an inhaler. I go back to see him Wed and he’ll listen to my lungs to see if they’ve cleared up. Gosh I hope so.
I had a brief anxiety moment later that day and told my DH that maybe we didn’t need to do the surgery, maybe I didn’t look hard enough at the other options. He just smiled, sat back and asked about football.
“You know how in football one team will be getting ready to kick a field goal, usually for a tie or win? And how right before they snap the ball the other team calls a time out? Well that’s called icing the kicker. They do it so that the kicker has to spend more time thinking about the kick and sometimes he over thinks it and misses. That is what’s happening to you right now. You are over thinking things.”
Maybe so. I’m over thinking why I didn’t just totally quit when he told me to and how I’ve never had a male GYN before, and how I messed up his schedule by getting sick, and how.. okay I’ll call it… can I just crawl into a hole and NOT go back to his office, even if they are the best doctor’s office I’ve seen in years?
But, none of that is going to help. And even though I know why I started smoking in the first place back in the 80’s, and I know why I still smoke today (I do it when I’m overwhelmed and want to separate myself from people), I also know that the time has come where I need to be important enough to myself to want to stop once and for all.
I saw this on someone’s Facebook today and I’m thankful for the reminder. “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” Ephesians 2:10.
Regardless of how much I over think things, or how abusive my own thoughts can be toward’s myself, God reminds me through his word, that I am His masterpiece. I need to believe that more, and believe myself, less. Here’s hoping the no smoking, and meds work well enough by Wednesday so that he’ll operate on Friday.
My question to you guys and gals: I know too many bible teachers who fall into the same trap of self condemnation, what verses or what things do you focus on during those times that help you pull out? Talk to me.
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Most of you know that I took a memory verse challenge for 2009. On the first and 15th of the month, I check in on a blog and leave my memory verse – with the promise that I will write in on my spiral index cards and memorize or at least meditate on that particular verse.
I had a harder time finding a verse this week. And then this one jumped out at me, so here we are. Another strong and courageous verse – gotta love it. And considering my fun with Pauline yesterday – this is one of the answers to her fears.
Pauline might have been born scared, but she lives free in Christ – which is really the message I’m working on building around her.
I have a New Year’s confession to make. My resolution for “faith not fear in 2009” expired on January 3 at 8:00 pm Tulsa Time. A personal neurotic fit quickly followed.
I will spare you the details – it was a simple questionaire that put me over the edge really – nothing more nothing less. A stupid piece of paper that had me stumped.
Today I taught my first Sunday School of the new year, and was happy to see women came back. – I took a full year off and wasn’t sure if they would, honestly. But they did, and it went well.
Pastor is doing a sermon series this month on Trust. Today was about leaning not unto my own understanding, but rather trusting God, with everything – for his ways are not my ways. And I can either take him at His word, or not. My choice. – Trust should be a verb he said – it’s shown through action and do my actions show that I trust God? sure they do, right up until I fall into the deep end of the pool without my floaties.
Earlier this evening, I sat down with my Bible in hand, and it occurred to me that I’ve been reading it for everything else – preparing messages, researching topics, etc. But I had not once since ThanksGiving I’m guessing – sat down and just read for me. I was in the middle of talking to God about the events of the last few days, my dreams for the future and my present frustrations. I was also telling him that “maybe I shouldn’t do thus and such, I mean it’s a big step and I’m probably just running ahead of myself again. Lord I need your wisdom.”
I was planning on going to psalms. Psalms are easy to find – open your Bible to the middle and go left. The binding on my home bible is busted and so it falls open rather easily. When I looked down to see where my hand had fallen, my eyes fell on the highlighted passage.
(Isaiah 41:9-10) – “I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant’: I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you: I will up hold you with my righteous right hand.”
The only question he had for me tonight was “Are you going to believe my promises from your brokenness and think they apply to someone else, and not you, or are you going to believe ME?”
I have a girlfriend moment here – a couple of weeks ago, God blessed me with an email from someone in the body who read my blog and liked it enough to ask permission to link to it. I sat and stared at the email and cried. Joyous tears mind you. This email was from a writer I admire. Someone who’s own speaker’s classes I’ve yet to attend because of finances, but want to dearly.
I was simultaneously thrilled and scared. He read my blog? oohh – The holy spirit left my brain and Deana kicked in. I can’t write now.. what if I write something stupid and he sees it.
Yep – me at my most real – fearful and neurotic.
Then God kicked in… somewhere deep and still and said “write baby girl, write.”
I know what Joy would tell me, if I’d shared this with her, “Well aren’t you full of yourself today?” Which is her way of saying “get over yourself and focus on God.”
So.. My eyes are back on the author and perfector of my faith.. I had a blog here for today, and the rapport step was just supposed to be the opening. Then I decided I liked the opening, but not the blog. So.. I’m leaving the opening for now. I hope you don’t mind.
I have a feeling, I’ll be looking at riders next year. Not the focus I was planning – but it’s the message that keeps finding me.
Be blessed.
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You’ve heard of hanging chads right, well this is a hanging rapport step. I learned about Rapport Steps from a workshop I went to last summer. After listening to our teacher take us into her stories in such a way that I felt like I was really there, I laid down everthing I thought I knew about speaking, put myself on hiatus and became a full blown student.
I hate it when I listen to a speaker and they use a story that obviously isn’t theirs, it robs them (in my eyes) of authenticity. Her stories were real and they made a real difference. I want to learn how to use my own experiences as rapport steps to stay authentic.
As a writer and speaker I know that rapport steps are supposed to be written last. I originally wrote this one to open a very specific message. Only when I finished writing it, I realized it didn’t fit with that message anymore.
As I’ve said before,I’m a teacher and I’m also student. I have been blessed to speak at various retreats and events over the years and right now I am on an intentional hiatus. Right now I’m putting myself thoughtfully and with purpose at the feet of people who are gifted in this area, traveling to do so when needed, so that I might learn from them. I have talent as far as speaking goes, and I get to use that talent, for God, in my own church at times. I also feel led by God to stretch that wall farther out. I want to be better. Not much of a sales pitch right now, I know. But I’m not selling anything so it’s okay.
I really wanted to write a really spiritual blog for the end of the year, after all everyone else is – instead dear readers, I leave you with a hanging rapport step as well as my heart. The heart of a student. The heart of a woman who knows the true rider first hand. A woman who sat by the fires of life only to have him appear out of the darkness, pick me up and carry me off.
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I love cowboys. Real cowboys make me weak in the knees and render me speechless. All that hat tippin, and the way they drawl out “Maaa’aam.” So polite and so tall. Who needs Armani suits and Hollister cologne? Give me a real cowboy any day; all rough and tumble, scarred hands and polite hearts, a love for God, family, the outdoors, and for this great country.
Cowboys bring out the wow, with a capital W.
Don’t worry – my husband already knows that real cowboys can make me swoon when I least expect it. He’s kind of okay with that now. He wasn’t always, but he’s learning to be.
Living in Oklahoma, you’d think that would be a given. Loving cowboys that is. But it isn’t a given if you are from up north and never met one before. I’ve only lived in Tulsa for 15 years and I didn’t meet a real live cowboy until just six years ago. His name is Dale and he goes to my church. His wife, Janel used to teach Bible studies when we first joined Our Savior, and when I met her she was engaged to this tall drink of water cowboy who helped with her ranch. She was smitten. Jo, as we call her, is from Montana, she’s a rancher and it only makes sense that she would marry another rancher. Everyone was dying to meet him. And meet him, we did. That’s when I found out that cowboys can make me swoon.
They were having a cowboy BBQ at her ranch complete with a bon fire and the whole church was invited. As we were walking up, Jeff and I could see someone squatting down over a dug out pit in the ground, stirring a pot of cowboy chili so we went over to introduce ourselves.
Dale saw us approach and stood up to say hello. I think he’s about 6’2, but I’m not sure. I just know he’s tall. Dale shook Jeff’s hand and I stuck out mine to shake his. He looked at my hand and then this cowboy slowly turned to look at me. Instead of shaking my hand, he bent at the knees just a touch, touched the front rim of his hat, with his right hand, bowed his head ever so slightly, looked me in the eyes, held my gaze, and drawled out this “Maa’aaam” like I’d never heard it before.
My whole body just went limp. My hand that I’d stretched out to shake his suddenly found the collar of my denim jacket and didn’t know what to do. My eyes widened trying to take in the whole picture. My cheeks turned bright pink, and my mature grown woman’s alto voice, cracked and giggled like a school girl. All that came out my throat was an estrogen blush of a whisper of “oh my!”
Ah yes, that was definitely a day and year to remember. And if I forget, Jeff won’t. He hung his head and buried his face in his right hand like he does when I’ve done something crazy – it’s the “Let the world just swallow me right now” sign he sends from time to time. Dale turned and winked at him and when he saw him later he said “Sorry man.”
Later at the bon fire, I saw Dale ride in from out of the darkness, pass Jo, reach down and in one swoop pick her up and place her on the horse behind him and off they rode.
WOW
What woman doesn’t want a rider like THAT? ————————-
Side note: Dale and Jo got married the following year, and we were all there. They still go to our church and have two beautiful children. Raising young kids and teaching horseback riding keep Jo too busy to teach, but they are still our friends. And I still like cowboys – riders make me swoon what can I say? With good reason, but I’m ahead of myself.
This video clip is “Cowgirls Don’t Cry”, with Brooks and Dunn and Reba at the CMA’s. I love the message in this song – it came out originally with the movie “Flicka” – and it stuck with me all these years.
The whole Cowgirls don’t cry thing, isn’t all that true – but the riding part? Definately.
Deana O'Hara - Speaker, Comedian, Writer 