Stephen - Greek for Crown, Refined, Amiable, Fearless (with a few annoying habits)

I've contemplated this post for a while, though I haven't really known what direction to take it. I like people so much and find myself so intrigued by people I know that they often become characters to me. And I've thought many times about featuring a "character" that I know in my blog every once in a while. So today, I'm doing it. And I'm starting with my favorite character of all - my husband, Stephen Dwayne McCoy:

I'll spare you the details of how we met and under what circumstances, but suffice-it to say I was immediately taken with him. One look into his bright green eyes and a flash of his big, quick smile and I was done for. I knew immediately he wasn't like anyone I'd ever met and I've yet to be proven wrong.


I've always thought of Stephen as an introspective man. He's always seemed content to go his own way and that's usually the straight and narrow. He's one of the very few people I've ever known who seems to innately know which path to take. When he's at a metaphorical crossroad - his choice of direction is quite often... right. I've learned more from him about who I'd like to be than anyone else in my life.


His laugh is completely obnoxious! It's loud and he chortles. It's so obnoxious in fact that I can't help but laugh myself when I hear it. It comes from his gut and his throat and it's strong enough to register on the Richter Scale. I think his laugh may be directly responsible for the number of potholes on 17A between Cottageville and Dorchester Road in South Carolina. But rest assured, when he laughs it's because he's thoroughly enjoying himself! He's really a very shy man, though you'd never guess it as he is rather loud and boisterous. He likes the sound of his own voice and he could out-noise just about anyone. He's completely incapable of doing anything quietly. He whistles, taps, beats, sings, hums, twittles, bangs, beats, slaps, clinks, clanks and whams his way through life. Except of course when he's hunting. The few times I've been with him I was SHOCKED! He actually can be quiet. Who knew?


Stephen is also quite versatile. I'm still amazed when I find out he can fix something I didn't even know could be broken. He's very multi-fasceted and is quite good at just about anything. Precisely the opposite of myself. I'm not really very good at - anything. He can fix toilets, wiring, plumbing, fans, lawnmowers, houses, mouses, sinks and cell phones. He can play almost any game really well. He loves puzzles and things that he can master and he usually does it quickly. He's great at math - again unlike myself. And he's so level headed sometimes that it pisses me off. He's a bit of a slob as well. At forty years old he's yet to master putting his dirty clothes in a hamper or keeping a semi-organized desk. He drives too fast and goes to bed too late. He claims he doesn't have a terrific fondness for animals and yet they ALL flock to him. Every evening he can be found in his chair with 2 - 4 animals at a time laying all over him. They want to be wherever he is. He's a Mama's boy without being a weenie about it. He's sensitive in ways that don't make him un-manly. He cries over handi-capped children and he buys me Barbie's. But he's no pushover! I can't take advantage of him and he never tries to take advantage of me. He says he loves that I'm a challenge although he'd like it sometimes if I were a little less of one :)


When it comes to ladies, I have to admit that he's a bit of a schmooze. He's had a lot of girlfriends and there are boxes of pictures and letters from girls who simply swooned over him in his younger years. They were entirely right to of course. He's terribly handsome and very gentle and still somehow he manages to maintain an heir of arrogance and comfort. He's one of the safest men I've ever been around. He's the perfect balance of "pig" and "prince".


But the most wonderful, fascinating thing about him is that he has never tired of loving me. He is as loyal, as honest and as stubborn a man as I could ever have hoped for. I never leave my home nor enter it that I don't know I'm loved. And that knowledge more than makes up for all of the ways in which he irritates the hell out of me.

The Lesson Here Is...

"It is perseverence which distinguishes the strong from the weak."


The past several years have been ones of tremendous personal and spiritual growth for me. I am of course, still a work in progress... But with that being said, I've noticed that each year has had a sort of theme. A long and winding lesson has spun from each of the days that has, in some cases nearly driven me insane. Some lessons I simply would rather not have learned. Some hurts, I would rather not have had - although now I'm as contented as I've ever been - reconciling finally that I will forever dwell within my own head. (Insert modest chuckle here.)


I had falsely begun to believe that after the tumultuous year 2009, I was sort of... home free? So many stresses and challenges, both physically and personally had dominated those 365 days! I could have sworn I'd made it through the worst of it, but it's funny how God reveals himself. So many times I lost sight of him that year. So often I cursed and questioned that I wondered if I was growing or shrinking. But standing here now I'm beginning to see just what was in store for me. Winston Churchill once said "If you're going through hell, keep going." Only a man who had reached the other side could ever have spoken with such simple wisdom... Sometimes if we leave ourselves with no choice but to carry on, we do just that. And later on we find that perhaps we were a bit stronger, a tad tougher and a hair less fragile than at first we believed.


I knew before the dawning of this new year what my lesson was going to be, I simply did not and still do not know all the ways in which I'll be forced to learn it. Toward the end of last year after a lot of preparation and hard work I was forced out of two very important races because of injuries (three stress fractures and an achilles tendon strain). Disappointment is the least of the words I could use to describe my suffering. My pride suffered more than my body and my mind nearly got the better of me as well. Once I managed to heal from the fractures I began training again and a week before another race I strained the tendon in my left leg. That was the preverbial straw that split the camel in half and ground it's bones to dust! But in a truly bizarre sense I was almost prepared for it. My running nearly came to a screetching halt because of the injury but my mind broke down, bent itself over and succumbed to the lesson I knew right then I would be forced to learn... PERSEVERANCE. It's quite a lovely word and quite unpleasant to perform. It's the word I've strayed from my entire life. It's the one thing I've avoided more than blue eye shadow. It's the bone of contempt I cut my teeth on. It's the only thing I've never wanted to correct in myself. My ADHD and my vanity have kept perseverance and me apart for 32 years. I've quit everything I wasn't immediately good at. I've quit drawing, I've quit cross stritching, I've quit camping, I've quit math... the list goes on and on. And my new career requires an awful lot of "try try again" which isn't all that appealing to a gal like myself. I'm quite use to having my own way. In almost every job I've had, I've done very well and almost immediately met with success. This one however, is quite different. Success in this field is based on the number of times you meet rejection - as each "no" will bring you that much closer to the "yes" you're searching for. I've witnessed this first hand or else I'd have no faith in the process. And today I found myself on the verge of mentally "checking out". After a long talk with my manager (and with myself) I knew that this was all part of the plan, the lesson I was doomed to learn. Just like running, I have to keep putting one foot down in front of the other. Each step I take is one less I have to make. One more rejection is one less ahead of me. The injuries whether they be physical or mental are a distraction, something to keep us all from seeing the truth. They're designed to shift our focus and make us believe that we can't, that we're not good enough, not strong enough! I succumb easily to injury. I've been spoiled... and very very lucky. I've been given so much, received so many blessings that I simply do not know how to fail - and so I quit...


And so the lessons of this year have begun. So far I have one professional and one physical challenge to overcome... And I'm afraid that if I do not meet them head on, that I just might miss out on an opportunity later, to be the woman God has in store for me to be. Each new day brings me one step closer, one rejection further, one injury beyond the quitter I use to be.