Always Learning

Techie stuff can get overwhelming for anyone. But where there's a will there's a way.

My son's college basketball team played a very important game. This was no ordinary game for us. No. It was determining 1st or 3rd in the conference. And it was 12 hours away. The stations here didn't carry his school althetics.

How were 7 people going to watch on this  monitor?

The only way we could watch it was by internet. I knew it could be done, but I wanted to share it with everyone else. My little mac monitor would make it tough for 7 people to see the screen. Other people mentioned hooking up my laptop to the TV. So my daughter-in-law and I scoured the house for various cords. Okay, we pirated old computers in the house, lol. If it wasn't being used, well, it was up for grabs. We managed to get speakers, laptop, and TV all working. Voila! We watched his team win 1st place via an intense battle in the last few minutes. 

This was the second time in my life that technology was astonishing to me while in the presence of an octogenarian. My mother-in-law and I kept looking at each other stymied by the leaps in human knowledge and ability. Just a few weeks before, we'd Skyped with her for the first time too so she could talk to her great-grandson. Wow! Something we'd thought only possible for James Bond is becoming commonplace. 

When I was 5, the astronauts landed on the moon for the very first time too. It was 1969. My grandfather was 86 years old. Our mouths hung open as we heard the famous words, "One big step..." Then we shot to the window to look up and see if we could spot the man on the moon! How was it we could see the astronauts on the moon on television?

Grandpa & Grandma Nelson with their 3 children during the late 1940's. (The little girl is my mom.)

My grandfather lived in the time of covered wagons and he saw the invention of the car, plane, television, telephone, and first men in space. He lived from 1883 to 1982. My mother-in-law's life overlapped my grandfather's as they both lived through the Great Depression, the World Wars (well she lived through WWII), and civil rights. When grandpa used the phone, even into the 1970's, the operator placed the call. My mother-in-law remembers this but she's lived to see the cell phone and all the crazy options on them and Skype.

I like the options technology gives me. I just really like the open admiration I see in people who have lived in a different time. Yes, my kids think that about me too now. ;-) 

Have you talked to older family about what life was like for them?

Have you thought about what older people have watched happen in their lifetimes?

Speaking From Experience

Mistakes. Do you beat yourself up over each one? Does shame, doubt, and guilt assault you each time that mistake comes up again?

I used to be one of the worst (or is it best?) at beating myself up over mistakes. I'd befriend my pirate allowing it to attack me with guilt and shame. I'd doubt myself. Then I started helping other people who'd made a similar mistake learn how to get through the hardship. My past blunder became the brokenness God used to heal someone else.

Do we become friends with our pirates?

As I began to listen and open myself to helping others from my life lessons, even those difficult experiences caused by circumstance or another person's harmful choices became gifts. I could hold the hand of someone walking through the pain.

Soon the past became a reference file, then an amazing encyclopedia of ways to offer opportunity and choices. The grief I felt at wrong turns has become joy in being a guide through hard terrain. In embracing the lessons of my past, I've found purpose by sharing those lessons.

A few days ago Psalm 51:15 shouted out to me, "Help me to speak and I will praise Your name."

Such a simple, easily memorized verse. Building my speaking career is hard work. I loved that this verse reminds me to go to God for help to speak. Some of my topics can touch on old wounds and hot buttons. But with God's help, I will speak from experience. I hope to help others draw on their experience to soothe and smooth the way into their perfect purpose.

Gem of Wisdom: Opal~Empathy is the ability to understand another person's feelings or difficulty.
Read Proverbs 17:17 and see how it relates :-)

Are you friends with your pirate or is it time to defeat him for good?
Does someone need your past experience to make it through their current one?

This week, the  Christian Fiction Blog Alliance introduces   Angel HarpFaithWords (January 26, 2011)  by Michael Phillips   

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Michael Phillips has been writing in the Christian marketplace for 30 years. All told, he has written, co-written, and edited some 110 books. Phillips and his wife live in the U.S., and make their second home in Scotland.   







About the Book:

Widowed at 34, amateur harpist Marie "Angel" Buchan realizes at 40 that her life and dreams are slowly slipping away. A summer in Scotland turns out to offer far more than she ever imagined! Not only does the music of her harp capture the fancy of the small coastal village she visits, she is unexpectedly drawn into a love triangle involving the local curate and the local duke.
The boyhood friends have been estranged as adults because of their mutual love of another woman (now dead) some years before. History seems destined to repeat itself, with Marie in the thick of it. Her involvement in the lives of the two men, as well as in the community, leads to a range of exciting relationships and lands Marie in the center of the mystery of a long-unsolved local murder. Eventually she must make her decision: with whom will she cast the lot of her future?


If you would like to read the first chapter of Angel Harp, go HERE

Competitions abound in every possible arena. Preparing to compete for your dream takes years of practice. The big day comes and there's only one winner.

What do you learn when you win or lose?

I've had the opportunity to compete for beauty pageant titles, book contracts, jobs, commercials, spelling bees, and even choir trips.

THS Highlights, we won a spot to sing at the national music convention in New Orleans 1981

I've won each and lost each.
But each loss taught me how to hone my skills and each win built my confidence.
I learned that every time I compete, there's another opportunity to try again.
I've also learned the loss took me to a better place the next time. Sometimes it meant I changed direction and sometimes I came back stronger with a higher level of skill to win. I've begun to trust loss is often a gift to a higher win even when it's different than the first goal.

What are some competitions you've been in before?

Have you won or lost?

What did you learn from each experience?

More competition, including a cupcake recipe, over at: http://www.thefaithgirls.com

The grief of change

One of the things I'm so excited about this year is reviving my own blogging and writing life. But the change has been a difficult journey. I've been a little lost along the way in this new challenge of reestablising my goals. It's hard when something you've done for a long time becomes ingrained and then it's suddenly not there-- even when it's your choice to make the change.

The last two years I've been the publicity officer for ACFW. I spent 30-50, closer to 50, hours a week doing that volunteer position. I chose not to run again because of the heavy toll the commitment took on my family and writing/speaking life. 

So during 2010 my blog started to be the thing I neglected. Not intentionally, but out of fatigue from the long hours that landed on top of regular work. I'd let one post slip and then soon it was whole weeks I wasn't posting. After working with this blog since 2006, I felt like I'd lost a good friend. I'm honing the look and the direction here in order to reenter my writing life and refocus the ministry God has set before me.

Interestingly enough, change always seems to take us to a place of discomfort and brokenness. We end up letting everything go and starting over quite often because that's when we are most usable by God. How fitting for the title of this blog!

Today I'm wondering what you think of the new look. Is it fun, pretty, interesting? Does it make you feel comfortable while you visit? Can you find what you're looking for easily?

Thanks for taking the journey of change with me :-) It's a tough one to do alone!
Angie

How do you take fear out of change?

The fear of change may be one reason for giving up on New Year resolutions. Once the resolutions start to make recognizable changes, it's easier to stop than to feel the discomfort. Want to go back in the shell?

One of the best ways to push through this discomfort is make change slowly. When people try to make radical changes most will fail because it's not sustainable long term. But creating new habits with small steps on a daily basis will help you be successful.

Why does this work when the other option doesn't?

Your brain only has to see the next spot, not miles down the road. Building up the skills along the way like learning to read or swim. The basics are crucial to the long term ability. Break down the resolution or goal into manageable portions and then break it down into daily tasks.

When you don't have to focus on the huge leap, like cliff diving, you'll build up confidence too. Do you think anyone who succeeds at the skills that amaze us did it without learning the basic skills? Cliff divers don't just run and jump. They start learning to dive off the side of the pool--after they've mastered learning to swim.

Time to come out of your shell and try again?

What's the next step for you? Just the one you have to do today to work toward your goal.

Angie

New Wiki Speaker Listing

Angela Breidenbach
Angela Breidenbach Reviews
powered by Speaker Wiki

I've just learned of this new tool to list myself as a speaker and hope it will be helpful to meeting planners and groups looking for speakers. The only struggle I have is that it doesn't recognize my book coming out in May even though it's on pre-order. Otherwise, this seems like a fun new opportunity to let folks know I'm available to speak :-)

Angie

Simple Tool for Achieving Any Goal

Are you digging into your dreams or are they already floating away?

By doing a little every day, you'll set up a pace to achieve them this year.

I think the biggest mistake we make in annual goals is not putting the daily planner to work. It's the simplest tool we have and the most neglected. But the neglect is of your own dreams--your special purpose.

We set ourselves up for failure by not working out a daily plan. Then a few months down the line, those dreams are already forgotten because they haven't been in front of us each morning. That sense of failure becomes a prophecy far into the future. But it's a prophecy you can change.

Put a note in your calendar, whether you use your cell phone or a hard copy. Ask yourself one week from today, "What have I done to work toward _____?" Can you look back and actually see steps toward achievement?

Do you have more than one goal? Then it's doubly important to schedule in time each day to work on that project. I realized this morning two things I'd promised myself to finish last week. I didn't write them down. They didn't get done. Perfect examples that my day timer works when I use the tool properly!

So here's my challenge: Will you do something every day to reach your goals with the tools available?
If so, pull out your daytimer right now and note the next seven steps, one each for the seven days. By following through on those plans, you'll reprogram your brain with positive expectations. You'll begin to expect to achieve your dreams. That expectation will turn into action and action into achievement.