“HARSHNESS AND STORMS” CAN LEAD TO FULFILLING ONE’S DREAMS
by Dr. Laurie Roth, ©2015
(Aug. 26, 2015) — Sometimes the most stunning tree drawing all attention from the curious watchers is the twisted, blown and bruised tree facing the harsh wind and storms on the edge of a cliff.
Unlike the pleasant and lined-up trees that grow in the safe valley, they cannot and will not ever compare in strength and rare beauty to those that stand out in full face of the cliff’s harshness and storms. Sadly, many settle for the peaceful valley where the winds and storms cannot reach. The truth is that most real Americans have been made by the struggle, loss and harshness of life.
Our very bone marrow that God gave us tells us to dust ourselves off and get on the horse again. Real Americans and real Christians will stand in the face of hardship and evil because our hand is in the hand of God, not our own strength. That is why America is so rare and so strong. We know who the real God is and we follow Him. We know in our guts ‘Greater is He that is within me than he that is within the world.’ 1st John 4:4. We drift, we get distracted and we certainly blow it…but we get back up.
America is this twisted tree full of scars and textures that faces the winds of evil night and day. Historically, with every assault on our freedoms, we have gone deeper and raised our hands higher to the living God of the Holy Bible. The world has watched in amazement, desperation and jealousy. We have always known who made us, protected us and built us, and it wasn’t a personality or dictator.
Secretly, most want the struggling person barely staying afloat to make it. Most want America to also get back up. The watchers are not always a great crowd, though. They boo, they preach, they yell and they will make sure you know what play you should have made…but they are still there. They are secretly hoping you will remind them of something to believe in and point where the finish line really is. Remember that when you are alone and still trying.
The dangerous seduction for us all is to look at our own lives and believe we are worth erasing. We have lost too many times. We have no money. We are yesterday’s news. We are too ugly and too old. We have simply made too many mistakes and been rejected too many times to make a hill of beans’ difference in anyone’s life. What is the point?
I know someone who was hit by perfect storm after perfect storm. Her dreams, health, career and nearly her life were stolen. She made many mistakes, trusted the wrong people, went bankrupt and lost everything over and over.
Her deepest dream was to make it as a singer and songwriter and she was good. In 1992-1995 many huge music trades and critics were saying she was the next Whitney Houston or Celine Dion. She was starting up the national charts and on BMG distribution, released and going up the charts around the world. Just when her music video was about to be released, she was a victim of crime and all her record promotion money was stolen. Her record and dreams went from soaring to crashing. She was now too old (so she thought) to try again and in the heap of ruin. She was forced to go bankrupt, owed the IRS payroll taxes, was evicted from her home and had to live in a friend’s attic. While depressed, grieving and trying to figure out her life, she decided to finish her Ph.D. at Oregon State University. She had research left to do, so she focused on that and started sharing her music loss and story on local and regional radio shows. She liked radio and started volunteering.
Though massively disappointed but not completely dead, she tried talk radio, volunteering for a few years at KPNW in Eugene. Soon after this she went national and built one block at a time. She was syndicated starting back in 2001 and her show was building bigger and bigger on the national scene. She was growing in top 20 markets and breaking stories. She also after two broken engagements finally found her love and was happily married.
Their foster-adopted children were 2 and 9 when the perfect storm hit her again. She was nearly killed in a motorcycle wreck in 2005, in a coma for two weeks and in the hospital for two months. She lost her show, looks, health, had no health insurance. She was now ‘yesterday’s news’ again. This time, however, she had severe brain injuries, fought dizziness and severe double vision. She repeated herself and couldn’t remember much.. Did she give up or should she have? Some would say yes. How can someone like this stay in and be in music or media? Too needy and too broken…awkward.
Instead, she dragged herself out of bed each day with no applause, fanfare or money. Her show had been cancelled. She worked for months on her walking, talking right and not sounding like a stroke victim. The roof of her mouth had been severed rendering it completely numb. However, after 10 months of making national news with her near-fatal accident and losing everything, she started her national radio show again.
She wasn’t at all ready. She faked her way back by drinking coffee to deal with the horrible lack of energy – doing three hours of radio a day. She worked every day on being able to say and pronounce the hard words she could barely say due to so much muscle and nerve damage throughout her face and mouth. She simply acted tougher than she was. She was completely broken but pretended and showed up anyway. She was nearly a walking and speaking zombie.
The struggles just kept coming
After years of trying to build back her show and dealing with the financial hardship with the struggles of her radio network, she resigned in August of 2015. This seems like a sad and yucky ending to all the hardship. It isn’t the ending.
She has been dreaming about and writing a TV crime drama show for the last 16 years that she will act the lead in. She was even writing on this show when she was just home from the hospital, barely able to talk or walk. Dreams were still there, however, amidst the broken furniture. She is rallying up money and interest from all the right people now and many in the TV business are getting excited.
Now, the struggles and her dreams are morphing quickly into success in the world’s eyes. There is a national TV show coming along with a brand new record, produced by the former producer of Whitney Houston and Baby Face hits. This will be hot.
The final, absurd thing about this lady believing in her TV show dreams and more records is that she is now 55. Fifty-five-year-olds aren’t supposed to dream. Don’t they know how radio, TV and records work? If you haven’t done it by your 20s you ain’t going to.
That old and broken 55-year-old working on her TV show, researching talk radio options and making her next record out of the hills of Washington is me — Laurie Roth. I’m not dead; I am most alive.
My mouth is still numb; my bank account is still empty and awaiting promised investment from real folks who are closing deals. I’ve been off the air for one month now and my kids are now 12 and 18 and need money all the time and taken everywhere.
Join me and be a bold tree on a cliff who takes on the world. America is not going anywhere and don’t you, either.