Archive for Life Lessons
Living Down To Expectations
Posted by: | CommentsPeople really do live up to your expectations. In some cases they even live down to your expectations. And if you don’t have any expectations of them they can meet those, too. I happen to know that truth because one of my elementary school teachers told my parents not to expect too much out of me.
The teacher was reassuring enough….she told them that I would get along well in life because I was warm and friendly and people would like me, but that my grades would probably never be very high and they should consider a “C” to be good enough in my case. The bar was set low and I reached it – period.
Even though I wasn’t told what the teacher had said until I was an adult with a 4.0 grade point average in college, I suffered because of her assessment. When I got a low grade I wasn’t told to study harder or made to quit playing and hit the books. In fact, nothing was said at all, so I didn’t give school and grades much thought. I just went to the “yellow bird” reading circle (blue bird and red bird had the smart children in them) and barely passed.
Mononucleosis changed my attitude in 9th grade. I had a bad case of it and had to miss nine weeks of school. Only my ability to pass make-up tests could guarantee that I would advance to the next grade with the rest of my class. The fact that I had to learn a half-semester’s material on my own and take the make-up tests all at once scared me into my books.
If I wasn’t sleeping I was studying, and an amazing thing happened. I made straight A’s! Straight A’s! Nobody was more astounded than I was. By ninth grade I had figured out that I must not be very smart because a girl on the school bus had called me “dense” and I knew my grades were low. My newly-discovered brain enjoyed making 100’s on tests and I enjoyed the accolades so much that I continued to make high grades for the rest of my academic career.
My father, who is big on being a lifetime learner, has told me many times how sorry he is that he listened to that teacher. If a teacher tells you your child isn’t capable of much, prove the teacher wrong by going the extra mile to help your child be all they can be. After all, who is going to believe in your child if you don’t?
When You’re Suddenly on the Wrong End of the Rope
Posted by: | CommentsHave you ever had a naked man knock on your front door? Have you ever had the Sherriff commandeer your horse to go look for car thieves who might be hiding in your cattle feeders? If you answered yes to one or both of these questions you will undoubtedly understand how I ended up owning a vicious Saint Bernard.
The naked man incident and the car thief incident happened less than two weeks apart. My husband and I lived so far out in the country it took an hour to drive to the grocery store and our closest neighbor was almost two miles away. Suddenly, I did not feel safe when my husband left for work…and silly me had always thought the country was much safer than the city!
As if that is not bad enough, the dogs I had at the time escorted the naked man to the front door, happily announcing our visitor, and they were all tails-a-waggin’ when the Sherriff and three of his deputies searched our barn and hayloft for the car thief. I needed a mean dog…a real watchdog…a dog that could protect me.
We found Stanley on death row. He was a “three times and you’re out” dog. He had bitten three people and we knew he was the dog we wanted. The pound allowed us to sign papers saying we knew he was a biter and that we accepted responsibility for him.
You should have seen the slobber sling from that dog’s mouth when he was trying to bite my husband….we couldn’t even get him out of the pickup truck when we got home from the pound! My husband had to park the truck in the shade and while I distracted Stanly he’d rush in and put food and water in the bed of the truck. It took three days but my husband finally got Stanley familiar enough with him that he could untie the rope and get him out of the truck.
Stanly was so good at his job that we had to keep him tied up – so he wouldn’t bite me!
One day, to my horror, Stanley broke his rope and got into the horse paddock where he began chasing a yearling colt. I knew that even if Stanley didn’t catch him he was going to drive him through the fence and without thinking of anything other than the colt’s safety, I began chasing Stanley and I grabbed hold of his rope. Stanley weighed more than I did and he pulled me around that paddock like a skier behind a boat for about three minutes. When he suddenly stopped it dawned on me all too quickly that I had a problem.
A hundred and thirty pounds of the meanest dog I’d ever seen was facing me down at the end of the rope I didn’t dare let go of. I had to make my move. It was me or him. My husband wasn’t home so I was on my own. With everything I had I started yelling, “Bad dog!” “Bad dog!” I got as big and tall as I could and I started reeling him in with big yanks and jerks. “Bad dog! Bad dog!” Boldness came out of the depths of my fear and from that moment on that dog was my dog.
When you go after something you think you want and you come to realize that it is out of control, get hold of yourself. Get big, get bold, and jerk it back to the place it needs to be. When you are afraid of what your immediate future holds, dig deep and face the facts. Take charge of your life, be responsible for you decisions, good or bad….if you don’t, you’ll find yourself at the end of your rope facing down something that might just take a big ole bite outta ya!
One Encouraging Word Can Make a Difference
Posted by: | CommentsWhen my husband and I separated after 11 years of marriage there was only one woman who encouraged me to do the work and stick it out. She wasn’t even someone I knew very well, but she pulled me aside after a meeting and told me that her separation was the best thing that had ever happened to them.
One woman gave me the encouragement to keep trying. I don’t know why so many people seem so eager to support the death of a marriage. We all know that “wherever I go, there I am,” and that while first marriages have a 50% chance of failing, second marriages have a 70% chance of failing.
It is actually shocking to me when I hear anyone explain that the reason for their divorce is as simple as “we’ve grown in different directions.” Or, “we were so young. We didn’t really know enough about what we wanted in a spouse. We fell out of love. That old spark just isn’t there anymore.” Those things can be fixed with work, with effort, with commitment.
My daddy taught me that there were only two reasons that I could come back home after I got married. The first was if my husband abused me and the second was if he became a “habitual adulterer,” which is way different from a man making a huge mistake once. My first marriage lasted almost three years. I was allowed to come back home.
I can talk about divorce because I had one. Even though I wanted the marriage to end I was not prepared for the grief, the depression and the remorse I felt when it was over. I mourned the death of my marriage for years after it was over. It was the death of a dream, an ideal, and the end of a live-in relationship for my daughter with her father. Divorce stinks…even when you honestly believe you need one.
When my second husband and I separated we used the space and distance to work out our misunderstandings…that is what we suffered from. We read each other’s minds, had preconceived notions about what we thought the other one really thought, and we could not communicate without the white noise of our internal conversations convincing us that we were miles apart in every area of our lives. My husband once said our marriage had been as dead as Lazarus but that it had been raised from the dead.
I thank God every day for the one woman who gave me a seed of hope. I could see how truly happy she was and I wanted that for me, for my husband and for my children. For over 15 years I have had the kind of marriage others desire for themselves…and though it is hard to imagine…I have it with a guy I had gotten desperately tired of trying to have a marriage with.
God can fix anything you give over entirely to Him. If you will surrender trying to fix your spouse and get to work on fixing your relationship with God like I did, you will become the mate God always intended your spouse to have. And when you are that person, your spouse will respond in kind.
You Never Know
Posted by: | CommentsWhen I was growing up, Dad took every opportunity to teach us how we should conduct ourselves. Our family ate out fairly often, and sometimes our server might be a little rude or inattentive. When she’d leave the table, Dad would say, “Let’s not pass judgment on her. We don’t know what might be going on in her life. Someone she loves may have passed away; maybe her car broke down on the way to work. Regardless of what may have happened, let’s be extra nice to her and maybe we can help her day get better.”
That lesson has played an important part in my life and has influenced the way I treat those who are rude, impatient, or seemingly uncaring. But, being human, I have, on occasion, been the rude, arrogant, thoughtless one, and I’ve had to eat my share of crow.
I live in Alvord, Texas, a rural town of about a thousand, and we’re blessed to have a highway by-pass so the big trucks don’t have to drive through the center of our little town. One day I was driving to my parents’ house and I was about to cross one of the bridges that goes over the by-pass when I saw a little orange and white Jack Russell terrier trot onto the bridge.
I slowed my car down to give the dog plenty of time and space to get across the two-lane bridge. Suddenly, an 18-wheeler turned onto the bridge behind the little dog. That dog took one look over her shoulder, trotted over to the concrete wall that ran the length of either side of the bridge, and hopped right over it. I gasped. I knew the dog had fallen at least 18 to 20 feet to the freeway below. Fearing that the dog had fallen into the oncoming lanes of traffic, I swung my car over to the side of the service road, jumped out and ran down the embankment.
Luckily, the dog had fallen onto the shoulder of the road and wasn’t in danger of being hit, but she was lying on her side, shaking. When I got close to her she tried to stand up, and it became obvious that she had hurt one of her front legs. She let me pick her up and I was relieved to find that she had a dog tag with her name on it, as well as her owner’s phone number.
I got back in my car, put the little dog in the passenger seat, and immediately called the number. A lady answered and I was so nervous from all the drama I just blurted out, “You don’t know me. I have your dog, Rosie. She’s hurt. She just jumped off the 1655 bridge and landed on the shoulder of the highway about 20 feet below. Can I bring her to you?”
Silence.
“What do you want me to do with your dog?”
She said, “That’s not my dog.”
“Why does it have your phone number on its tag?”
“It used to be my dog,” she said.
“What do you want me to do with her? She’s hurt, and needs medical attention.”
“I don’t know. I can’t deal with that dog.”
The shock and horror of someone blowing off such a cute, sweet, and suffering dog that they had once owned hit me full force. And with all the judgmental emphasis I could muster, I REACTED angrily and said, “You obviously don’t DESERVE to own a dog!” And hung up the phone.
I drove the dog to my vet, told her to give her anything she needed, and I’d stop back in on my way home and decide what to do then.
My self-righteous self wasn’t back in my car five minutes until it started – that little voice….“Julie…you don’t know that woman. You have no idea what she might be going through. Who are you to pass judgment on her? You better call her back …..you better call her up and apologize…..Julie????”
I resisted long enough to drive the hour to my folks’ house, have lunch with them and visit for awhile, but as soon as I was alone in my car again I knew it was useless to resist. I was going to have to apologize; I might as well get it over with. I pulled over and dialed her number. When she answered I said in a rush, “Please don’t hang up. I’m the lady who called you about the dog and I need to tell you how sorry I am that I spoke to you the way I did. I don’t know you and I don’t know what might be going on in your life, but I have no right to judge you. Can you forgive me?”
She said, “I’m so glad you called back. I’ve been thinking all day what a jerk you must think I am. When you called, I had a car full of little boys who had had a slumber party at my house the night before. We were on the way to the hospital because my son was born with a medical condition that requires immediate treatment when it flares up, and he was having another episode. I just couldn’t think of what I could do at that moment for Rosie.”
She went on to explain that her family lived in an area that had lots of traffic and major busy streets and that Rosie was an escape artist. They had given her to the no-kill humane society with instructions to only give her to a home in the country because they were sure she’d get run over if she continued to live in the city. They had done all they could to keep her in, but they simply couldn’t keep her safe.
Ultimately, we found Rosie’s new owners and her broken foot healed just fine. But just think how my angry, judgmental words would have stayed in the mind of a woman who was already doing her best to do the right thing, a woman who had worries much greater than the situation at hand.
Dad’s teaching has served me well all of my life. If you give others the benefit of the doubt, it will serve you well, too.
