I seem to work in a pattern of taking on task bigger than myself. This comes from a good place, usually my heart says, “Let’s do this!” when my head is taking realistic measurements and reminding me of my limitations. Yet, I trust my heart more times than my head for the basic reason of it operating from faith over fear.
This week was supposed to be a normal one, however by 10 a.m. on Monday I saw a post from a friend that her mom was being sent home on hospice, and three texts from other friends asking for prayers for they were all climbing a different mountain. My heart hurt for all of them, and I yearned to take their pain away. I kept uttering the same prayer for each one, over and over, “May we come to You from a place of FAITH and not false fear.” I couldn’t shake the feeling of sadness, so I finally stopped my day and sat down with my Gratitude Journal. This is something I normally do at night, right before bed – but I needed an attitude shift, and they say it’s impossible to be grateful and anxious at the same time. Usually, this is a really simple task – today I got to #4 before I just sat and stared.
That’s what fear does, it reminds us the size of our mountains and blocks the view of our blessings. When faith is handing us our climbing gear and slapping us on the rear in encouragement that all things are possible. Even this mountain.
A few months ago, I was headed to Fort Worth to see some friends for the weekend. I was meeting them downtown, so I left the house dressed cute for the evening. Meaning I had heels on – high ones. As I left our neighborhood to head north, I had to hit the breaks to avoid hitting a huge bull in the middle of the road. He was at the top of the hill, a blind hill if you are traveling from the other direction, so I was fearful for those people. I knew who Mr. Bull most likely belonged to, so I quickly turned into their driveway and drove down to their house. This isn’t a neighbor we know outside of the polite, drive by wave. It’s an elderly couple who we have admired, simply based on how hard they work to keep their farm pristine.
So, down the driveway I went, parking just short of running over the sweet little man, sitting in his lawn chair.
“Hi Sir, I think you have a bull that got out!”
“Huh?”
“Your bull? He is out in the road!”
“Huh?”
After a few more repeats of this, he got out of his chair and walked to meet me. I pointed to the red bull in the road, he said, “Oh goodness! My wife must have left the gate open when she got the mail.” As he jumped into his golf cart, I hollered, “Do you need me to help get him back in?” He waved at me to follow him. Once we got back to the road, I pulled to the top of the hill, put my hazards on, and got out to coral the bull back in the gate. In my heels. The owner of Mr. Bull told me to stand at the gate, he was going to run him directly towards me, and if I could just usher him to turn left, into the gate, that would be great.
Not a single thought went into me saying yes, my mission was clear. Save all the travelers on Robin Road and direct Mr. Bull in turning left. Nothing else – like death – crossed my mind until all 1500 lbs of irritated Mr. Bull was trotting towards me, standing in my high heels and my red shirt. I knew I should have worn the green one. I threw up a prayer to my Grandpa Mason – who was most likely shaking his head and chuckling at me from heaven, but he handled his fair share of livestock when he was on earth, so I was counting on some direction from him. I planted my heels, and started swinging my hands together, ending the move in the direction of where Mr. Bull needed to end his jog. Clearly, being a cheerleader prepared me for this moment. As he got closer, he also got bigger…and bigger, snot was slinging out of his nose as he ran. He was making a bee line straight for my red blouse, so I quickly added a “Yaw-yaw” noise to my arm movements.
When I was young, I loved trying on my mom’s high heels and seeing how fast I could run in them. That memory came to mind as I was watching Mr. Bull run at me, did I still have that talent? Just as I was about to test my speed, Ol’ Red turned left, into the gate. Thank goodness, he understood what “YAW” meant. As the old man drove by in his golf cart, he paused and said, “Little Missy, thank you for stopping and helping me get him back in. We just bought him, and I’d hate for someone to have hit a $2,500 investment. Thanks for your help, glad you knew how to handle cattle.” And sped off to close the gate.
Yep me too. Glad I could put my cowgirl talent to use for you sir.
Basically what I saw running towards me.
My friend Amy’s favorite saying is. “When you bite off more than you can chew, Chew it.”
Sometimes you have to do just that, chomp away. When our faith is bigger than our feet, we simply need to widen our stance to hold our balance. When our mountains (or snotty bulls) seem to take up our entire vision, and fear is knocking on the door – that is precisely the moment to lean into the faith that caused us to take such a big bite in the first place.
Bob Goff says that most of our decisions are driven by either love or fear. Figure out who’s doing the talking, then decide what you’ll do.
Lean into love beloved.
Stare the Bull in the eye, smile a little, and chomp on that faith.
For any cowgirl gigs you need help with, feel free to contact me anytime. I just hope I’m not busy washing my hair that day.
No bull.
