Category: life

life

Allowing Rest to Restore

I have said for years that if only I were someone who dealt with stress by throwing myself into work, I could be a gazillionaire by now.  Unfortunately, just the opposite is true; as stress piles on, I just sloooooooow dooooown.  Stress just saps my energy.  Over the years this fact as much as anything has propelled my attempts to find healthy ways of dealing with whatever life throws at me.  I cannot afford to let things stress me out if they don’t have to; if I did I’d never get anything done!

Of course, sometimes life can overwhelm even our best coping mechanisms and I can feel that familiar lack of energy creeping in.  And I fight back the best I can.  I see my doctor and take my medicine and exercise and try not to spend too much time in bed and maybe even drink more water and eat less sugar.  I push myself to keep moving even when I don’t want to.  I make myself talk to people.  I try to be kinder to myself and everyone around me. 

But every once in a blue moon, the stress gets the upper hand and nothing I do helps Continue reading “Allowing Rest to Restore”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment
humor, life

Depressed DJ For Hire

I think I did better than a cat

Ok, so don’t ask me how, but some how the only job I have been able to find is working as a wedding dj.  I know, right?  The irony.  It’s actually a cool job – great people watching.  And it’s like the opposite of being a cop: you are seeing people on the best day of their life. 

The problem is that it’s not a job that leaves a lot of room for error.  This is a one-time deal (theoretically) and you have one shot to get it right.  Unfortunately, I blew that shot last night.  I DJ’ed a beautiful, very high end wedding last night (New Year’s Eve) and just screwed up from start to finish.  I won’t go into all of the gory details, but it started with forgetting my cell phone and gas money and ended with me somehow unplugging the entire sound system during the middle of a song.  And that wasn’t even the worst of it.  I mean, I didn’t ruin the evening – people had a lot of fun and several people came over to thank me.  But whenever their wedding reception comes up, they will say, “God, that dj was awful!”  Shockingly, I did not receive a tip. 

I feel like I should send the couple a note apologizing for all of the glitches.  Continue reading “Depressed DJ For Hire”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
enjoy life, life, thoughts

Thinking Makes It So

“There’s nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” – Shakespeare

I picked up this quote back in my senior year in high school while reading Hamlet for class.  When I got to college, I wrote it on a piece of paper and taped it to the wall above my bed.  It’s on my facebook page right now.  

This quote has always spoken to me about the importance of perspective, responsibility and choice.  It says to me that the way I see something – the emotions I associate with it, my analysis of what is going on, the assumptions I make about motivations – is a choice.  If one of my kids says something which is unintentionally rude, I can chose to laugh or be offended.  Sometimes I might have a good reason to be offended, but if I can, I’m going to laugh.  It’s a choice.  And that extends from the biggest things to the smallest things.  I can choose how to view things rather than just go with random gut reactions. Continue reading “Thinking Makes It So”

Unknown's avatarRebecca TrotterLeave a comment
being mom, enjoy life, life

A New Year’s Resolution for the Overwhelmed, Forgetful and Easily Distracted

I hate New Year’s resolutions.  Hate them.  The worst part of New Year’s day for me was always when the qxh (quasi-ex-husband) would pull out a piece of paper and write “Trotter Family Resolutions” across the top.  So we could “pull them out at the end of the year and see how we did”.  Great, another completely unrealistic standard to feel bad about not meeting.  Just what I need! 

The other day I read an article which advised that the key to keeping this year’s resolutions was to set up specific targets.  Like “I will exercise 3 times a week and lose 25 lbs by April 1.”  Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha!  Seriously.  That’s what it said.  Like the two are related.  Continue reading “A New Year’s Resolution for the Overwhelmed, Forgetful and Easily Distracted”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
life, religion

Fear of the Lord

Proverbs famously says that fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom.  Old time fire and brimstone preachers said this meant we were to live in fear of the coming judgment.  Others, pointing to the finished work of Christ said that we need not fear judgment and that this verse was simply saying that we needed to have an attitude of reverence towards God.  Or it was fear like a child has of their parents.  But the word used is fear, not reverence and using fear to control children is rapidly falling out of favor. 

I have come to my own understanding of this verse.  I think that fear of God comes from really knowing that God does not respect our limits.  This is a God who created a world of predators and prey.  This is a God who made a world with mosquitoes and earthquakes.  Why would God create a world like this?  A lot of people embrace some version of religion which denies that God did create a world like this. Continue reading “Fear of the Lord”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
enjoy life, life, relationships

Be a candle

Loneliness can be a deep, vast sea to those who have no one waiting for them on shore. Open your heart to someone you know is floating in a sea of despair, their head barely above the waterline. Stop in for a visit, jot them an email, or give them a call. The fact that someone cares might be enough to give them the fortitude they need to start paddling. ~ by Sandra Kring

Dear Abby

My parents have always kept a subscription to the Chicago Tribune.  So from the age of about 11 on, I was an avid daily reader of Dear Abby and Ann Landers.  Over the years, I was always a bit amazed that the same complaints appeared over and over again; intrusive questions about fertility, noisy chewers, comments about children with disabilities.   Ann and Abby had already answered these questions many times before, people!  Weren’t you paying attention?  Even my friends at school read Ann and Abby most days.  In an argument, Ann or Abby’s opinion was a trump card – they had that kind of authority.  Continue reading “Be a candle”

Unknown's avatarRebecca TrotterLeave a comment
being mom, kids, life

“Shut Up, Mommy,” Saith the toddler

Tonight, I was telling Olivia, my sweet just about 2 year old, to keep her grubby mitts off the food that was waiting to go into the oven.  She got frustrated with me, grabbed a piece of paper and pretending to read it, said, “shut up, mommy” and handed it to me with a humph.  Oh goodness.  I just laughed at her and moved her away … Continue reading “Shut Up, Mommy,” Saith the toddler

Unknown's avatarRebecca TrotterLeave a comment
life, religion

When God Cleans

"I don't wanna take a bath. I like my stink just fine!"

For some time a couple of years ago I was blessed to have a spiritual director who I met with monthly.  Towards the end of my time with her, I remember complaining, “I feel like God is getting down into the nooks and crevices and cleaning out every little speck of dirt he can find.  I wish it would stop.  Hasn’t he done enough?  Does he really have to get into all the little, tiny places?  I’m ready for him to be done”

It’s like it says in scriptures: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” (Hebrews 12:11)  Too often, we think of discipline as punishment, but discipline is teaching.  It is correcting, leading, challenging and pushing the recipient to mature and grow up.  In proverbs, discipline is described as “training a child up”.  Punishment isn’t the point.  Correction is.  And when we submit to the training God would like to take us through, it is easy and rewarding enough.  But often God starts messing in places we’d just as soon leave alone.  I mean, if I sometimes say mean things when provoked, that’s only normal and hardly needs God to attend to, right?  But God says that his work is to perfect us. And according to him, such things really do require attending to if they are not to be a barrier between us. 

The end of that verse from Hebrews holds the promise, though: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”  Today, I am glad that God was willing to reach into all those nooks and crevises to get out as much dirt as possible.  There is no way I could survive the place I am walking through if he hadn’t.  At the time, I just wanted it to stop, but God knew what was coming.  Continue reading “When God Cleans”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
life, prayer, religion

The Mystery of Faith

"Go that way!"

I always wondered about faith.  Evangelicals say that you have to choose to have it.  Calvanists say that you are predestined to either have it or not.  It’s a free gift that you cannot earn.  But you have to nurture and hang onto it.  Catholics and Orthodox Christians practice it with rituals.  So many contradictory ideas. 

What I have learned is that faith is the little voice that pops up when you are discouraged or even despairing and points you back to God.  It tells you something true and sometimes what is true is not what you want to hear.  And you can choose to embrace it and continue walking by faith or you can reject it and try to find your own way forward.   And when times are hard, you have to really listen for it.  You have to really hold onto what you hear.  Because soon enough something will come and wash that little piece of comfort away. 

When I have taught my kids to pray, I have always started with the story of Elijah at Horab from 1 Kings 19:

So He said, “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. Continue reading “The Mystery of Faith”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
life, race matters

What a white girl knows about race

Maybe they were right!

I am the whitest of the white girls.  I just am.  I’m cool with that.  One of my black girlfriends told me that when she had moved to the Chicago area back in the 80′s my hometown was one of two places she was told by her mother to avoid ever being in.  Before going to high school, the only african american I had ever spoken to was working at a store.  But, one of the first people I met at the Catholic high school I attended was Elaine, an African American from Joliet, a small industrial city about 30 minutes from my home.  We were both in the honors program, so we had most of our classes together and we hit it off.  We shared a wicked sense of humor and spent inordinate amounts of class time writing long notes whose main purpose was to get the other person to laugh out loud while reading it.  I can’t believe we never got caught! 

We never really talked about it, but there were differences.  We were BBFs (Best Buddies Forever), not BFFs.  Mostly she ate lunch with the other black kids and it never occurred to me that she would do otherwise.  It’s got to be hard spending all day surrounded by people who can’t really “get” you and may not even like you no matter how good or nice or cool or talented you are.  I’d want a break too. 

Looking back, I realize that I was white-girl clueless in a way that a less tolerant and kind person might have been unwilling to deal with.  Continue reading “What a white girl knows about race”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments