Traveling Tavern Wench

Out of Difficulties Grow Miracles.  Jean De La Breyere

Playing golf today at Sharkstooth with a great group of women, I was reminded of my 500 dollar car and how I feel each and every day that my life has been an unfolding miracle.  So back to the adorable 500 dollar car without a working roof and a rusty door and too many issues to mention here.

I have told this story when I have done talks but I have never sat down to really think of the unfolding miracle that I am living right now. To be complacent about it and not celebrate and thank God for it and thank all the people who were participants in my miracle, that would just be a shame.

When I was still married to my starter husband, I landed a job on the golf course at Bay Point as a cart girl. Us cart girls had a different name for our job, we were traveling tavern wenches. I thought that sounded kind of fun.  I got there early and prayed my 500 dollar car would get me there and stayed till the lights went dim in the sky. On rainy days it was a hoot because the roof did not work unless I got a passenger aka one of my kids to hold down the roof while I drove.  And because the bottom was rusted out some of the water that did not make it through the top came  in via the bottom.  So imagine your kids and yourself wearing a raincoat in the car because getting wet was a given. 

At the end of my shift which was dark thirty, I would go to the college and go to school where I usually got home around 10 or later at night.  Because I worked all day and school at night my study time consisted of writing notes on note cards that I read at stop lights and in between making drinks for golfers!!!  Some of my classes were online so I would do them on the weekends or late at night. 

I kept reminding myself many things like: “What happens to me on the outside is not within my control but I am 100 percent in control of my insides.”  I quoted over and over every positive quote I could find in a book that I read early in the morning and late at night. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!”  If I think I can I am right and if I think I can’t I am also right.”  I read EVERY single thing that told me that I could!!!!  I DID NOT LISTEN TO ONE SINGLE PERSON WHO MADE A BIG DEAL OUT OF THE FACT THAT MY 4 YEAR DEGREE I WAS PURSUING WAS GOING TO TAKE AT LEAST 7 YEARS AT THE RATE I WAS GOING.  

Part of me was embarrassed because of my 500 car and the fact that ALL of my clothes were hand me downs or purchased from the Goodwill near Bay Point.  It was then that I learned a new way to talk about my lack of funds. When someone asked me if I could do something or buy something, I did not say, I can not afford it!!! I said that it is not in my budget!!!!!  I knew then that the words I spoke mattered and that if I wanted a different life than the one I had at the time I had to live a life of an unfolding miracle.  

Every single time my car broke down and I was holding my kids hands beside the road, which is quite a lot when you are driving a 500 dollar car, I looked to the sky and thanked God for the future me!!! I said I promise When I am successful I promise to share what you have given me.  For some weird reason, I never ever believed I was going to stay in the life that I was living. I was passing through!!! I was not there to stay.

Every time I prayed my car would make it across town to pay my power bill when my electricity was turned off, I kept thanking God for the future me!!!!  I kept promising Him when I was successful I would share.  I did not say if, I said WHEN!!!

I am so thankful that I knew that I would not be able to make an internal change based on external circumstances.  I knew that everything I was doing and living through was preparing me for my future. I had no time or energy to complain or lament about where I was because I was too excited for where I was going.  I believed the promises of God and I believed the stories I was reading about people just like me who had worked hard and believed harder and continued this on repeat until I was no longer driving a 500 dollar car. (I still cry sometimes when I crank up my pink jeep)

So much has happened since that 500 dollar car and I and God have kept our promises to each other.  When I go play golf now on that same golf course but as a member and not a traveling tavern wench, I look up at the sky and I smile and I say thank you, thank you, thank you.

My prayer and my message for you is that whatever you are going through and whatever is stopping you from getting to your future you, don’t listen to it unless…….. It is telling you that you are more than a conqueror, You are abundant, You are moving towards your best you, your future you. You are going to become successful so that you can shout loud and strong that every struggle is a growing ground for your future success. Don’t waste any of it and make sure that when you get there you share abundantly of your heart and your resources.

We are all just traveling through this place and the whole trip is better when we do it together.  I am so grateful that I remember where I was so I can thank God for today over and over and over.

When I play golf at Bay Point, I love those traveling tavern wenches and I hope that I can remind them that they are amazing and be their cheerleader like so many others did for me.

Love the grateful traveling tavern wench!!!

Karen Key Smith  

Ps.  I did not start OUR  company until I was 50. 

Pss. I did not have any money when I started OUR company, what I did have was hope, God and the belief that I could and lots of people loving me along the way!!!!