Shoved to Them
Two and a half years ago, my book had just come out and I was beginning to do some speaking to women’s and homeschool groups, and was lining up more talks for the future. I felt like my life had a clear direction that it was headed in, and I was excited to get there.
And then Ella got sick.
Within weeks, it was clear that she wasn’t getting immediately better and I began to cancel all of the dates in my calendar. I had no idea what I would be doing that far in the future, and so I canceled everything.
And nobody invited me to come and speak any longer.
The invitations and inquiries dried up as I knew that they would. While we were battling the health care system, I was glad to have fewer things on my plate. Then she stabilized and began thriving in her new life and our family adapted to our new reality, and I realized how much I missed the career I had almost had.
I put it into God’s hands and just did the work He placed in front of me. Sometimes it was the regular stuff of being a homeschooling mom, and other times it was exciting like a new radio show.
After our episode on the importance of Self-Care aired, a Catholic women’s group from here in Dallas invited me to come and speak about the topic at their monthly meeting. I eagerly agreed to do it. This is a topic I’m passionate about, I truly believe that it is a moral issue when moms neglect their own care, and it’s one I’d spoken on many times in the past. I had a well-polished talk in my computer just waiting to be resurrected.
The day before I was scheduled to speak, I opened the file one more time to double check that it was still there…and found it completely corrupted. It was unreadable and could not be saved in the limited amount of time that I had available. So I spent the whole of Monday trying to recreate from memory and hour long talk I hadn’t given in two years without any notes available.
Yesterday morning, I drove to the meeting with an outline of what I was going to say, and a friend’s advice to “just wing it. They’ll never know what you meant to say in the first place, and will be none the wiser” floating around in my brain. It was good advice, but I didn’t take it.
As I stood in front of that group of women, I saw a group of women very much like me. Their lives aren’t perfect and they have learned to roll with it. Which is why I threw my friend’s advice out the window and opened with “Hi. I had this whole talk laid out and prepared with cool visuals and funny pictures. Instead, my computer ate it yesterday, so you’re going to get the extemporaneous version. I’m flying by the seat of my pants here, ladies, and that should be interesting seeing as how I’m wearing a skirt.”
What followed was a blend of talk and discussion. It could have been more polished, and better laid out. My ADD did run away with me at one point, but I managed to wrestle it back onto the path. I was rusty and nervous, and a little unsure. They laughed at the appropriate places, and many of them even took notes (which is always a plus)…so I knew that I wasn’t completely horrific.
Then last night I got Facebook messages from a couple of the women who were there. “You spoke right to me and said exactly what I needed to hear.” And I smiled. That was really all that I wanted. I wanted to encourage at least one woman to take control of her own health and well-being, and it seems that I may have. I don’t know that I will ever be invited to do this again (but I wouldn’t mind it for sure.) If not, I will continue on as I have for the past 18 months, doing what God puts in front of me to do.
But if someone wanted to hand me a microphone…I certainly wouldn’t complain about it a bit.
**If you’d like to talk about me coming to speak for your group or event, shoot me an email at shovedtothem (at) yahoo (dot) com I can’t promise uncorrupted computer files, but I can promise to inform and entertain.
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