GETTING STUCK ON THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

By So Here's Us.... life on the raggedy edge.

I started this post over a week ago, shortly after The Embarrassing Incident (or EI, as it shall be known henceforth). I turned this tale inside and out, carefully rearranging the details to spin the story and cast myself as the hero. Or at the very least, the protagonist.

Who doesn’t want to be the power player in their own story? Except some days it doesn’t work like that. Some days you find yourself stranded in the snowy armpit of Where-The-Heck-Am-I, with no one to blame but yourself.

Or so I’ve heard.

This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve become somewhat of an expert at the whole lock-your-keys-in-the-car/run-out-of-gas/get-hopelessly-lost/breakdown/vehicle-catches-on-fire (twice!)/stuck-in-the-snow/mud/ditch phenomenon. I probably shouldn’t be allowed out unsupervised.

On the day of The EI, I had undertaken a solo road trip to meet up with one of my oldest, dearest friends. We had decided to meet up in the mountains halfway between our two cities. What better way to catch up than a brisk winter hike?

Long story short: iMaps, unmaintained logging road, panic, snow, ice, nowhere to turn around, more panic, “All Season” tires, flaky city driver (me), deeper snow… even my friend’s 4-wheel-drive SUV was having trouble – my little red car didn’t stand a chance. Shannon seemed unphased and shrugged knowingly. She’s been around long enough to be completely unsurprised by my misadventures. Not exactly the years-in-the-making, once-in-a-blue-moon reunion I had pictured.

But here’s me, solidly stuck in the middle of nowhere. Nothing we did helped. Not the ice scrapers, digging, car mats, wheel turning, feats of car-pushing strength… Stuck.

I haven’t prayed so urgently in a long time. Before each new attempt…“Please Lord, rescue me. Don’t let this day be ruined. Save me from the tow bill and the humiliation and having to call Glen with yet another guess-what-I-did-now story…”

After an hour, we gave up. We began making our way back down the mountain (WITHOUT the little red car). There goes the day.

Until salvation came bombing up the road wearing coveralls astride two large, noisy ATVs. In less than 10 minutes, these hearty locals had me out of the rut and on my way back down the mountain. Like it was nothing.

Once again, I was rescued. I always am. Somehow God provides. And people step up – kinder and more helpful than I expect. It shouldn’t surprise me so much each time.

I much prefer being the rescu-er, than the rescu-ed. “Here I come to save the day!” tastes so much better than “Help!” And that’s a problem.

It’s good to give, no doubt, but it’s important to receive also. Either side without the other is unhealthy. Without a balance we aren’t truly participating… in family. In community. In church. In humanity.

A facade of independence and competence and keeping-it-all-together-all-the-time keeps people at arm’s length. My friendship with Shannon has survived (and flourished) over two decades, not because of proximity or circumstance or chemistry, but for all the times we’ve waded into the deep to rescue each other.

All my intimate relationships have grown in the messy, needy, bumpy parts of life. As we reach out to rescue or be rescued, we may not get a quick fix or any kind of solution at all. Sometimes our rescue comes in the form of a safe person to talk to. Or tell us when we’re wrong. Or take the kids during a crisis. Or cry with and for each other. Or spend a precious kid-free day driving for hours and pushing a stupid red car out of the stupid snow.

So here’s me, grateful to the Cameron family for rescuing me, to Shannon for grown up conversation, to Glen for going to the DoodleBops concert so I could have the day… and especially to all of you who keep rescuing this damsel in distress. I hope I can return the favor from time to time.



CHRISTIE HOOS
So Here's Us.com

TALKING TO MEN

I would like to believe that, on the whole, I am better than average at knowing how to speak to a man. I am pretty good at explaining the differences in the genders when doing my seminars. I can carry on an easy conversation with most men because I understand what they like to talk about. And since one of my missions is to challenge women to appreciate the men in their lives, I actively try to learn more about the way men process information. In a nutshell – I get guys.

But every once in a while, I revert lock, stock and barrel to being a stereotypical girl. Recently, I had one of these moments.

The day had started out very well. Since Eric and I are new to Ontario, we called up the one friend we have out East and decided to go out for breakfast together. This is a young guy who is seriously dating a girl but very much still a bachelor. He exists in that space of wanting to learn about women because he really digs this chick, but hasn’t quite achieved bilingualism in both the guy- and girl-speak.  He’s trying to learn the language, but isn’t yet fluent.

He also introduced us to his roommate – another bachelor – who while he isn’t currently working on a relationship with a woman, he is in the midst of doing his PhD. (One could argue that this is a relationship in and of itself). You might say that he is a serious intellectual, but has not even enrolled in the girl-speak classes yet. Not that I am knocking on the guy. Heck, I felt my IQ rise just by hanging out with him.

Breakfast was fabulous. We were introduced to the amazing Cora‘s restaurant at which I promptly gorged myself on a Brie and Mushroom Eggs Benedict – delicious! The conversation was the perfect blend of intellectualism meets smart-ass. Just how I like it.

As we were leaving the restaurant, however, I noticed that there was a hair salon open right next door which carried the brand of hair product that I use. I had been out of my favourite product for a week and was desperate to track it down in Toronto. I ducked into the store (but alas, I did not find the product), and as I rejoined our friends, I launched into a detailed explanation as to why I had to track down that particular product. V-e-r-y detailed.

As I continued, both guys, who up to this point had been engaged in constant dialogue and banter with me, gave me completely blank looks. It was like the whole scene geared down into slow motion and you could see the Blink*Blink*Blink of their eyes.

To my complete and utter horror, I realized that I was talking in-depth “girl-speak” to two bachelors.  They had no idea how to respond to me. I might as well had been speaking Klingon (wait…scratch that…at least one of them is probably fluent in that).

Thankfully, my husband (who no doubt felt pity on me because I had been without female companionship for weeks) brought the conversation back onto a gender-neutral track and we finished our time together well.

As I laughed at myself later, it occurred to me that very often, we do the same thing in our relationships. We can think we are communicating with each other, but  in reality we are speaking another language.

Unfortunately, women are particularly fond of equating “talking” with “communication”. Men do not define the latter so rigidly. Communication to a man can hanging out with their buddies on a golf course, or watching a game, or sitting silently in a duck blind. That is communication. There doesn’t need to be talk.

I have a vivid memory of asking my husband how his day of golf with a friend had gone. “What did you talk about?” I asked. “Not much,” was his response. “In fact, at the end of the day, my buddy said to me – it is so great to hang out and not have to talk.” They had bonded, they had communicated, but there had not been much conversation.

For women, this seems crazy. If we have more than a 4 second lull in conversation, we feel that we aren’t “connecting” with each other.

It is not that one form of communication is superior to another…they are just different.

I think that the goal of your relationship should not be to make your partner speak your language but to become a bilingual couple. You should be able to fluidly switch back and forth from guy-speak to girl-speak. Sometimes you respect the connection found in a non-verbal golf game and sometimes you cover for your wife speaking a foreign language to two bachelors – that way you know that are always going to truly be communicating.

How about you?  Are you fluent in your lover’s preferred communication style?

ERYN-FAYE FRANS, CANADA'S PASSION COACH®

ErynFayeFrans.Com

FORSAKEN .... FOR A REASON

"My God, my God why have You forsaken me?”

This was the cry of David’s heart as he began Psalm 22 and it was the cry of Jesus’ heart as He hung on the cross.This was also the cry of my heart the night after our oldest son’s second major surgery. 

He had been hit and pinned between two trucks on August 4th, 2010 and spent the next month moving down from ICU to each level of hospital care until he could be released.

Hunter, our son, had just had a muscle flap transfer and was in excruciating pain all night long - in spite of the heavy drugs. 

“I kept praying out loud for You to take the pain away ... to just touch him somehow ... and nothing happened - nothing changed. I cried and pleaded for You to hold my baby, to gently rock him, to soothe him ... and You didn’t.

I felt like I was praying to the walls of the hospital room.

I felt alone. I felt forsaken.

How could You not hear us? Not answer us? Turn Your back on us? 

Not help my boy ... Your boy? Your son who had come so far -- whose heart is so soft to You right now ... I don’t get it. I don’t understand.

I honestly felt forsaken.”

Have you ever felt forsaken by God? Did you ever get an answer from God as to why He seemingly disappeared when you needed Him most? Were you afraid to admit you felt this way?

I sincerely believe that God is big enough to handle any of our feelings. Let’s face it, feelings don’t equate truth. Remember, part of intimacy is sharing our gut-honest thoughts and emotions. It’s senseless to try to hide anything from our Abba Father.

However, many Christ-followers don’t know what to do with this feeling of spiritual abandonment. Many won’t admit to ever having felt it. And many will tell you that if you don’t feel Christ’s presence at all times, then it’s you who has moved away from Him. (So now you feel both abandoned and guilty that it’s somehow your fault! No comfort there.)

I will share with you what God impressed upon my spirit months later, and perhaps give you another perspective to contemplate the next time you feel forsaken ...

“Christie, it is far easier to trust me when you can see My fingerprints. It’s not as big a step of faith for you take when you can hear My Voice. And, there’s a greater likelihood of you reaching out to Me when you can feel Me right by your side.

But Who do you trust when you cannot hear Me, feel Me, or see Me? Where will you turn? Can you believe Me when I am silent? Can you entrust your heart to My Goodness when I am invisible?”

It was then I remembered the interchange between Christ and Thomas in John 20. It began with Thomas making the statement, “Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my hand into His side, I will not believe. ... Then Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Reach here your finger, and see My hands, and put it in My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.’ Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

Huge questions for my soul to process -- and as I did, I began to wonder if I experienced feeling forsaken for a reason? For a higher calling? For a greater purpose?

Have you ever felt forsaken by God? Did you consider that there was a greater purpose at work? What questions did your soul need to process?

Let’s put the hard questions out on the table and talk about them ..... please share with me your thoughts.

CHRISTIE LEE RAYBURN

ChristieLeeRayburn.com

FAILURE DOESN'T EQUAL SUCCESS … BUT IT CAN GET YOU THERE!

Last week, my daughter bombed a math test. Flunked. Failed. In a big and mighty way. So big, in fact, that the teacher called me into the classroom to show me the test.

Later, when Riley and I were talking about it, she began to tear up.


“Are you saying that I made a bad grade?” she asked as her lower lip quivered.


I hesitated for a beat and then said, “Yes, Baby Girl, you made a bad grade.”


A lot of parents would be horrified with me. I can hear them saying, “What?! You don’t use the term bad when talking to a child!” I could hear them complain that I was going to scar my child or permanently damage her self esteem.
In our society today, we have become so concerned with the emotions of our children that we will lie, cheat and steal to keep them from feeling badly. The theory goes that if we can organize a world where they feel safe and secure and loved and comfortable all the time, then surely they will become confident adults.


The problem with this approach is that it simply doesn’t work. An obese child who is told that she is fine just the way she is will still grow up with be an adult with chronic health problems. A child whose bullying behaviour is overlooked because he is having problems at home that are not his fault will not learn how to care for those around him. A child who thinks that a failed grade is actually good will never learn how to succeed.


And so I let my daughter feel the full weight of failure.


And then I gave her the tools to succeed.

“You see, Riley, a bad grade tells us two things: 1) You don’t understand the material and/or 2) You did not practice enough before the test. However, both of these things are fixable. We can make sure you learn the material and give you lots of practice so that when you will not make this grade again.”

The rest of the weekend, we worked hard. It was obvious that Riley was missing the foundational pieces to the concepts and so we made sure she got them. Then we built on the foundation until she was grasping math which was much more difficult than the concepts on the test.

She got it. She grew confident. She asked to practice so she could show us what she had learned. And she learned how to turn failure into success, a life lesson that is exponentially more important than a math grade.

Many of the couples I meet struggle even admitting that there is failure in their relationship. They dance around the subject, trying to project an image that is perfect. They hope that I don’t ask any questions that might poke that delicate exterior and expose it for what it truly is.

But, just like Riley, if we do not take an honest appraisal of our work and if we do not acknowledge places where we fail, we will never be able to move past failure to success. Admitting you have a problem, as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, is the first step to a new life. The brilliance of taking this first step is that you can make changes, fix the problems and move to a place of health and true happiness.

What do you have in your relationship that is not working?   What is failing?

Once you have taken an inventory, begin to make changes. Need some help? You can book your coaching session with me today.

ERYN-FAYE FRANS

CANADA'S PASSION COACH ®

ErynFaye.com