Monty vs Bo

The battle of: Never being happy with what you have or the saying "you always want what you don't have" is even true in dogs.

Walking my dogs today, I started smiling because I realized that our new puppy Monty was trying to be like our big boy Bo. Even though he is a Mini Dog he is trying with all his might, digging his back legs into the ground, to caught up with Bo.

I couldn't help relate that short walk to US! How we spend most of time in life digging our hind legs into trying to be something we are not. Spending energy on wasted effort in a losing battle. If we spent more time on being the BEST little dogs we could be, we would make more progress. We are all given individual gifts that can be under utilized when not cultivated.

Acknowledging weakness does not mean weak but shows respect for talent and abilities that we may not have and excelling in our strength takes courage to let go of the big dog complex. You never know what you may find when you put your energy into finding out who God made YOU to be: You my touch some people in your sphere of influence that likely no one else will touch!

Teaching Gratitude

If character is caught not taught how am I doing on teaching my kids gratitude?

The rocks sit on my counter with the words that we said out loud of all the things we were thankful for... BUT does that teach true, genuine gratitude for life, things, people, time, movement, air, wind, sky and sea? Does saying it, writing it or talking about it change the heart?

If it was a recipe, what would the exact ingredients be to make gratitude happen in me, in my family?

1 Cup Unconditional Love (even when they scream I hate you)

1/2 Cup of Awareness of the needs around you 

2 Cups of Thoughtfulness and Gentleness

1 1/2 Cup of Forgiveness and Patience

2 Tbsp of Resilience 

1/2 Tsp authority and authenticity

A dash of Consistency 

Bake on HIGH - FOREVER

If only it was this easy to add a couple things in a bowl and MIX.

 I would roll my eyes when my mom would say "Change attitude for Gratitude"

but now it is a motto that stays with me daily.  May I continue on being radical about grace and relentless about truth to stage a background of graciousness for the upcoming adults that are following my lead.

Let Go and Let God....... show you HIS plan

That phrase can be defined many different ways but for me it has one meaning "Donna stop trying to control everything, be still and let me direct your path". It was scripted across the wrinkled lines of my forehead in 1999 when I found out I was pregnant. Very shortly after getting married and moving from Florida where your environment includes beaches and palm trees, to Dallas where there is NOT, I learned that I was with child. 

Living with my dad, completing an internship and teaching 20 classes a week was not a world I particularly wanted to bring a child into but nevertheless I was going to have a baby.  Well I thought I was going to have a baby until the second visit to the doctor showed a slow heart beat. It's funny that something at the time, I thought was so insignificant could make a lasting impression on my life. "What does that mean" I asked with a naive partial smile?  "Not sure" Doc says "let's do some blood work to check hormones levels". 

Anyone that has been in this spot knows what that means, when your hormones show low, your baby is not able to survive. The hours that you wait after the blood has been drawn seem an eternity of unknown darkness, a period of waiting that cultivates patience. Patience comes hard in a hurry-up society! (Swindoll)

After multiply trips of giving blood and my hormones bouncing up and down giving false hope, the silence of the stethoscope when he placed the cold metal around my belly for one last sign of hope, proved that the "Baby is not breathing your hormones levels are down Donna, it is time to schedule your D&C".  Not the acronyms you want to hear ever in a life time. A D&C procedure may clean out the uterus but it also strips the soul of life giving energy that once carried a brief  glimpse of motherhood.  

Starting each day now making two school lunches, it seems hard to believe that I once was on a path of not ever bearing my own child. 

The tears came hard and stayed too long for a cherished life I had not known along with the pain came a false sense of control. I began to think I had the kind of power or influence to eliminate the possibilities of this happening again. On a mission to solve the great mystery of miscarriages, I followed the " I am in control" journey that took three years for me to learn,  Let Go and Let God show you HIS plan.  



It was a day like any other day, beginning the same but ending forever changed. The clock struck 2pm and it was time for an espresso, trying to pull into the right hand lane to park, I looked in the rear view mirror and my son who would of been 4 by this time was sitting in the middle of the back seat in high back car seat and he looked me right in the eyes and said "I am ok mom". I could barely get the car to the side before I burst into tears unable to even leave my car. Paralyzed with fear that I had seen a ghost and trying to figure out what it meant and why and if I had taken too much allergy medicine.

We hold onto the past SO tight sometimes that it restricts us from moving forward. Two days later I was pregnant and I remember seeing the + sign on the pregnancy test on that Martin Luther King Day in 2004 and it ALL made sense. HIS plan not mine. 

I took heart from the words of British author James Stalker who wrote, "Waiting is a common instrument of providential discipline for those to whom exceptional work has been appointed."