If I had a dollar for every embarrassing, horrific, rough run I’ve had in my relatively short career of running barrels, I’d probably be able to pay my way to the top. If I had a dollar for every run-away and off-course I’ve had in the past 2 years of my rodeo season, I’d be able to buy myself a few cups of espresso… Which is certainly too many when you’re paying $5 a cup. It’s no secret that rodeo is tough. If you ask anyone who has been on the road full time for any length of time they will no doubt tell you that. I think it’s hard to imagine how tough it could really be, though, unless you’re facing that rodeo road yourself. At least, that’s how it was for me. It’s easy to be on the outside of rodeo and look in and imagine a fabulous life on the road. It’s appears to be filled with amazing horses, fast runs, big money, gorgeous rigs, and running in front of a huge audience cheering for you night after night and having your name up in lights. I’m going to tell you right now, all of that is true. It’s a pretty amazing feeling when you take the lead somewhere and hear the crowd roar so loud you miss your own thoughts. The part that is usually missed, though, is that makes up 1/1000th of rodeo. You get 8-18 seconds in that arena-in the limelight. And immediately you are back facing the long drives, the hurt horses, the lonely road, the lack of sleep, the stench of not enough showers, the fast food dinners at midnight (or maybe Sherry’s or Denny’s if you’re lucky) and that amazing feeling? Well, it’s long gone by now. If things don’t go well, you get to drive yourself, your travel partner or your dog (maybe all three) absolutely mad while you play your run over and over in your head, and talk of how it could have been different, how you should have done one little thing different and you could have been at the top, how you got cheated in your draw, how you drew up in bad ground, how the weather didn’t hold for your performance, how you got stuck in rodeo traffic on your way in after driving for 18 hours straight just to make it and watched your steer get turned out or them announce your third and final call in the arena just as you’re flying into the parking lot. So many things can-and absolutely do-go wrong in rodeo. It’s the name of the game. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, how many stellar mounts you have in your trailer, how many rigs you’ve got headed down the road, how many gold buckles you have in your trailer-Rodeo life is hard, and things happen all of the time. That’s why I say, in order to rodeo year after year you have got to have an absolutely unfathomable love for the sport-otherwise you will drive yourself completely mad in a matter of a month and will never want to do something so stupid like rodeo full time, ever again. But what happens when you have that bottomless love for rodeo, yet find yourself truly sucking? Well, when you find yourself in a rut, you try and keep hope. You repeatedly tell yourself along with others that things could turn around at any rodeo, it just takes one run, your time is coming, eventually your luck has got to change. Just stick it out. Don’t give up. Keep trying. But what happens when still, things get harder? Things get worse? Your bank account is dry. Your credit cards are maxed. Your horses are either hurt or completely unreliable. You show up to rodeos just hoping you make it out of that arena alive. You spend your time not thinking about what you should have or could have done different, but instead about how much you suck and things could not possibly be worse. Then you think, if they can’t get worse, then why stop? If you’ve really hit your rock bottom, then there’s only two ways to go: straight up or sideways (after all, Wynonna said it herself). You’ve gotten pretty comfortable at rock bottom, anyway. No one has high expectations of you anymore; you sure don’t have them of yourself or of your horse either. You’re already broke, so honestly, what else is there to lose? What’s the point in stopping now? So you load up and you go to the next rodeo. You pull in and wonder why you are even there. You laugh at how pathetic you are for even showing up. Your warm up routine consists of thinking about what the crowd is going to think as you get ran off with in the pattern, as it’s bound to happen. You plan your strategy of how to stop when you do get ran off with. You think about how you will react when you walk yourself to the out gate in front of the people who just watched you make a complete fool of yourself. You enter that arena, every single time defeated before you go in. What am I doing? Why am I here? What the heck has happened? All right, I’ll be honest now… Go ahead and switch out the “You’s” above with “I” – Because that’s been my story the last month. I’m Nicole Aichele, and I have recently allowed myself to become utterly defeated. It’s taken me a long time, many rough roads and life roller coasters of digging up encouragement, deciding to persevere, and then being brought right back down to realize this: I’ve been at rock bottom for too long, and I’m tired of going sideways. There’s no reason to, after all. Hitting rock bottom I’ve realized, has nothing to do with my performance in the rodeo arena. It has nothing to do with the rough roads I’ve encountered along the way. It has nothing to do with being too tired to be able to emotionally or physically handle things. It has nothing to do with heartbreaks or hurt horses. Nothing to do with the amount of money you may or may not have. Nothing to do with no timing and getting ran off with every time you step foot in an arena. Hitting rock bottom happens when you aren’t fully trusting Jesus Christ. More so, when you put yourself in this dangerous position where you have yourself fooled into thinking that you are trusting Him and His plans, but go ahead and make a Plan B, C, D, E, and F just in case His don’t come through. Then you fly through plans A-F and keep hope throughout because “Jesus has got it, and this next one will be the one that works.” But that’s the problem. I’m hoping that through MY plans, Jesus will back me up. God will allow MY plans to work. How am I supposed to be truly following Jesus Christ and all of the perfect plans He has made for me when I’m too busy focusing on what my next move will be and how God will fit in to them? It just seems silly. I say I want to follow God’s plans, and I say that earnestly… Yet, I still make up my own plans and hope and pray that they will work. 4 latte’s down (bought with my no-time money) and I’ve finally realized that the struggle in my battles are not with The Lord, they are with myself. They lie in the inability to trust the maker of the Heavens, the maker of myself for goodness sake, with His plans. I don’t have the secret formula for implementing this. I don’t know what to tell you to do if you’re struggling with this same thing. I’m just called to tell you, hey, you’re not alone. But it’s time to make a change. It’s time to figure out just what submitting ourselves to the Lord actually, TRULY, looks like in action. Don’t battle with yourself; instead be in perfect harmony with our Lord. Align your desires with His desires. Teach me to do Your will, For You are my God; Your Spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness. Psalm 143:10 NKJV Amen.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 23:21:43 +0000
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