What I Learned from Limits

The topic of this month’s groupwrite project at Middle Zone Musings is What I Learned from … Limits.

The most significant limits I’ve faced in my life were the physical limitations that followed my stroke. As I described in National Stroke Awareness Month: My Stroke – The Next Three Days, there were many things I couldn’t do and few I could.

Faced with the possibility of never getting any better, I understood that the critical time was the next three days. If there was improvement during those crucial days, I would get better. If not, there might never be any improvement.

I vowed that I would improve in three days. You can read what I did and the results in the original post about the aftermath of the stroke.

From that experience, I learned:

• I would rather focus on the possibility that I could get better than on the possibility that I could remain in the same terrible condition for the rest of my life.
• Limits have power over me only as long as I grant them power.
• Lots of prayer coupled with determination can bring about miracles.
• Faith gives peace and confidence that no matter happens, I will be okay.

Podcast at Bluestocking Guide

On my blog book tour for Dream or Destiny, The Bluestocking Guide interviewed me on a podcast.

The interview is posted again on The Bluestocking Guide for Domestic Violence Month. Bluestocking was a domestic violence victims’ advocate, and we had a fascinating discussion about the subject.

Bluestocking said that David’s psychological reactions in Dream or Destiny were very accurate from her experience of dealing with victims. I don’t have any personal experience with domestic violence, so I’m glad my research—especially reading first-person accounts of victims—resulted in an accurate portrayal.

If you’re interested in understanding and preventing domestic violence, listen to the Inklings podcast.

Remember, I’m donating $5 to the National Domestic Violence Hotline for every copy of Dream or Destiny sold during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I’ll also give each person who buys Dream or Destiny an e-book of the contemporary romance Fern’s Fancies. Learn more in my previous post on supporting Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Supporting Domestic Violence Awareness Month

When I started writing Dream or Destiny, I didn’t plan on having domestic violence as an important part of the story. However, the characters took over. David let me know that he and Barbara had been abused as children and Barbara had also been abused by her husband.

I’ve been asked if I have had personal experience with someone close to me being abused. No, I haven’t. The closest I’ve come is the incident I describe in an earlier blog post. Years ago when I was teaching Sunday School, a little boy in my class knocked over a cup of coffee. I wondered why he reacted the way he did—backing away from me, holding his hands in front of his face, and apologizing over and over again. Many years would pass before I learned enough about domestic violence to realize this child was probably abused, and I have always regretted not recognizing the signs and taking action.

In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I will donate $5 to the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) for every copy of Dream or Destiny sold during the month of October.   

I will give each purchaser a copy of the e-book of Fern’s Fancies as a thank-you. Fern’s Fancies is a humorous contemporary romance that I wrote to submit to a specific line from a publisher; it wasn’t accepted. Rather than revise it to fit guidelines for other lines or other publishers, I just put it away. Now it’s a thank-you bonus for ordering Dream or Destiny.

If you purchase an autographed copy of Dream or Destiny directly from me, I will automatically e-mail your e-book and make the donation. If you order from GASLight Publishing, LLC or Amazon.com, contact me using the form below to let me know where you bought the book; I will make a donation to the NDVH and send your free e-book.

Note: request form removed 11/1/09 as promotion is over.

Good Luck and a Good Memory

I listened to a voice mail message earlier this week. A man gave his name, then said, “Please call me at your earliest convenience at the main office of the electric coop.” He ended with his phone number.

As a trustee and the secretary/treasurer of a trust my parents established to keep the small family farm intact after their deaths, I pay all the bills. Had I forgotten to pay the rural electrical cooperative that supplied electricity to the farm? That had never happened before, but one time I made a mistake in recording the meter reading. Now the coop reads the meter, so it couldn’t be that.

This certainly wasn’t the time to have the power turned off. We’re in the midst of a severe drought, and just a few weeks ago, the water level had dropped so low that the pump couldn’t reach it. Our tenant farmer had to haul water for the cattle for a couple of days until the well was repaired. It took another forty feet of pipe and several hundred dollars to get the well pumping again.

I’m conscientious about paying bills, so it’s unlikely I missed a payment, but what else could he be calling about? I told myself to quit trying to guess what the man wanted and just return the call and find out.

As soon as I identified myself, he said, “Congratulations! You’re the winner of the $250 electrical credit from the proxy drawing at the annual meeting.” The coop must have a certain percentage of its members vote at the annual meeting so the office mails out proxy ballots for members who can’t attend in person to mail in.

“Wow!” I responded. “I didn’t even pay close enough attention to realize there was going to be a drawing, so this is really a surprise.”

The coop representative said, “We didn’t announce it. The drawing was a surprise to everyone.” He explained that the credit had already been applied to our account, and we won’t need to make another payment until the credit is used up.

This surprise win reminded me of something that happened when I was in elementary school. The hardware store in the little town nearest to our family’s farm held a drawing. To enter, customers had to fill out a form with their contact information and their choice of prize. The store would give either a freezer or an evaporative cooler to the winner of the drawing. No one we knew had air conditioning in our rural area in the 1950s. We thought a window unit that cooled by evaporation of water, commonly called a swamp cooler, was air conditioning. All of us kids were excited about the possibility of winning an air conditioner.

But when Daddy filled out the form, he put the checkmark in the top box, which was a freezer. “Daddy,” we protested. “We already have a deep freeze! We want an air conditioner.”

“It doesn’t make any difference what I put,” he answered. “We’re not going to win anyway.”

He was wrong. He won—a freezer. I’m sure he didn’t even consider asking to change the prize. Daddy never wanted to rock the boat. I suspect he thought a freezer was a better prize anyway. A large family with cattle to butcher and garden crops to harvest could easily use two freezers. A swamp cooler in one window in one room wouldn’t make much difference in the big, old rambling farmhouse.

For a long time, we kids whined, “But we wanted an air conditioner.”

photo credit: p-duke

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