Girl Between the Lines: Most Valuable Advice Someone Gave You

Today I am doing something a bit difference and joining a link up called "Getting to know the girl between the lines."  Each Wednesday they have a new prompt for people to write about.  This week's prompt is:  "What is the most valuable advice someone gave you?"

Well, in my typical fashion, I couldn't pick one thing.  So I picked four.  But I'm combining two of them into one topic, so it's really like three, which is basically like one, so there ya go.

Work hard.
The very first thing that always pops into my head when I hear a question like this is a comment that my dad made to me while we were at the show barn and I was about 14.  No doubt I was whining about my friends being at the lake or at the movies or whatever fun thing that "normal" kids did, while we were, again, spending 3 hours at the barn walking pigs and working lambs.  My dad said, "Tiffany, we may get beat, but we'll never get outworked."  A similar piece of advice on this topic came from one of my favorite people, my ag teacher, a couple of years later when he went on a rant at a judging contest where some of the girls apparently were more interested in other things.  He said, "Girls, you can't go around in a short skirt with poofy hair thinking everything is going to work out.  Sometimes you have to put pants on, pull your hair back, and get to work!"  Even now, more than a decade later, I try and live my life in accordance with these ideas.

 Finding God.
I distinctly remember a conversation with my mother about how some of our friends went to different churches than we did.  My mom said something that I've always remembered.  "You can find God in a lot of different churches."  I think that this comment has probably shaped my faith (and probably many of my friendships) more than any other statement ever has.  I am a firm believer that God is in many different churches, and whether you can feel him in one where you quietly pray on a kneeler or one where people yell and scream and flail their arms about while they are singing Amazing Grace, the point is that you're seeking him, and that you find the best place for you to feel him.

Relationship advice.
Long before I was in a serious relationship, I heard one of my best friends make a comment that I have always remembered and that I think was a seed of wisdom that I might not have understood at 21, but that I certainly understand and agree with now.  At SoulMate Friend's bridal shower, someone asked her what she loved the most about her husband.  She responded simply, "He's everything that I'm not."  When I was younger, I thought I needed someone exactly like me.  Someone who was loud and outgoing and Type-A and anal and whatever other adjectives you can come up with.  But what SoulMate Friend knew, and I've come to realize, is that maybe what we needed was someone who was quite different, but who could balance us out.  It has worked out for her and her sweet husband, Tuba Man, for sure and was something that I often think about The Boy from Texas.