Today I came across a message from a dear friend. He wrote it in August and I had forgotten it, stuck at the bottom of the list of Facebook messages:
I've been catching up on your blog posts. I love your writing. You write just like you speak, and I can pick up on your humor, happiness, sadness and even your frustration...Please keep writing. You have something very special going on there, and only God knows how He will use you through your gift of writing.
It impacted me again, much as it did when I read it almost 4 months ago. To think that anything I had written made an impression on someone, enough to write me such an encouraging note, was amazing. But this time it was a little sad.
I haven't kept writing. The reasons are many. This has been a difficult season of life, one where every step has been met with obstacles on my path--not little ones, but those that cause me to stop in my tracks.
Rock slide in the Smoky Mtns, TN
The picture above feels like my life--what I see every day. The questioning this has brought about feels justified, born of sheer frustration. I feel thwarted.
Will God ever use me through my writing, for anything?
I read this while I sipped my coffee this morning:
How little those know Me who think I wish to thwart them. --God Calling
How little I know Him. That made me stop and think, which can be a good thing or a bad thing for me. It usually leads to more questions, but for now, I choose to own this statement (with a prayer to know Him more), and flip the "off" switch in my brain. Time to just be--to rest in the blessing of what is, this moment.
I have a great little book titled God Calling;a collection of the writing of 2 women, arranged in passages by day, covering an entire year. The passage I read today was another reminder that I have not mastered patience, and its very close companion, trust.
Heaven's Colors
Looking back you will see that every step was planned. Leave all to Me. Each stone in the mosaic fits into the perfect pattern, designed by the Master Artist. It is all so wonderful! But the colors are of Heaven's hues, so that your eyes could not bear to gaze on the whole, until you are beyond the veil. So, stone by stone, you see, and trust the pattern to the Designer.
Trust, to my mind, means letting go. It's so hard to let go. Why? Because we're taught that hard work and perseverance result in success. Chase your dream and never give up. Right?
Letting go feels like giving up. Letting go feels like the sure demise of one's dreams.
Maybe, just maybe, letting go is falling into a big, fluffy pile of warm blankets.
Maybe letting go is trusting that the pattern of our lives is already designed and laid out--and it is a beautiful mosaic.
Maybe letting go is the way to all we can ask or imagine.
Maybe there's something greater--something more.
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. --Ephesians 3:16-19
Maybe grasping hold of God's love is our greatestsuccess.
But seek first his kingdom...and all these things will be given to you as well. --Matthew 6:33
I'm not going to lie--it's still not easy to trust that and let go, but it is my goal.
That big plate full of stuff I was talking about a few weeks ago was suddenly and unceremoniously dumped in the trash.
Plate empty.
In its place? A crap ton of lemons.
This morning I received a job rejection after a phone interview, a face-to-face interview, a personality profile, and a week of waiting.
I wanted a positive, upbeat environment after the hell I endured for a year and a half. I wanted to actually believe I was making a difference in people's lives, in some small way. Everyone I met was so nice and I thought everything went very well. Then I got this:
"Thanks for interviewing with our company...we wanted to inform you that you were not chosen for the position."
A form email. Nice.
How is it that I don't have what it takes for this job?
I shook that off as best I could, telling myself every encouraging verse, positive quote, and cliche I could possibly think of to bolster my sagging self-esteem.
Move on. That job was not meant to be mine. God has something better for me.
I left for a meeting that had been anticipated for about a week. It had to do with an article I had pitched to Reject Apathy about the pain and suffering that still exists in post-civil war Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Managing Editor liked the idea and gave me a deadline of November 4th.
The bell rang, the starting gate flung open, and I bolted out of the chute. I thought about my angle day and night. I interviewed someone who had been to the camp this past spring. I wrote a few sentences while waiting to interview a Bosnian national via Skype.
I just knew I was doing something of Kingdom value.
At lunchtime, I met with the person that I believed would be able to facilitate donations to a refugee camp where people live in deplorable conditions, and I believed I had support.
[Looking in the mirror] Oh, the naive and idealistic. Bless their hearts.
In less than 15 minutes my article was shot down. Don't bother with 911.
Two rejections--rather big ones--by lunchtime. Ouch.
At home again, I sat at my desk to check my email. First in the stack--Your credit card statement is ready for viewing.
I tried very hard not to, but there was too much on my internal pile of "stuff". I felt the volcano start to rumble and rise in my throat, and then--tears, damn it.
Who knew that trying to help a group of suffering people in a war-torn country that is yet to recover 16 years later could be so complicated? So political? So many toes to step on?
Clearly, I need an intuition tune-up, or God just needs to simplify things by writing his plan for me on my walls. Fine with me, go ahead and mess up the paint.
To all who have been visiting my blogs recently, I offer my sincere apologies for Google+ bombing all my posts and removing all the photos.
I was not aware that being a Googler and a Blogger meant that all my photos were linked to Picasa albums; therefore, when I deleted those mysteriously appearing albums from my G+ photos...well you can well imagine my horror the next time I went to visit my blogs.
I am now wiser for this excruciating lesson. I loved sitting for hours on end trying to figure out what picture I had posted on the oldest posts.
On another topic, I still have a lot on that aforementioned plate. The chef thought I was still hungry and dumped another serving, or 3, on there, so now my head is spinning.
Have you ever had a person in your life that was your "go-to" for information and advice--someone who supported you and guided you on your path? A mentor.
I have never enjoyed the privilege of a spiritual mentor, but I was fortunate to have one in my journey into my modeling career. This unique individual was my fashion photographer, Michael Wray.
I can easily say that he was the most interesting, complicated, and probably the strangest person I have ever known. He was an amazingly creative and talented photographer. You will never see his best work, because he kept it safely guarded. I counted myself highly privileged that he showed it to me.
When I walked into my first photo modeling class with Michael, I had no idea what was ahead of me. When he picked up his camera and we headed out of the studio to the top level of the parking garage, I was at a loss to understand what could possibly be the point of shooting anything up there.
If not for Michael Wray, I never would have gone to Miami. He challenged me, I listened, I acted. He made me. As a result, I had experiences I wouldn't trade for anything.
He didn't just push me out of the studio nest, he told me to call him with every detail of my agency encounters in Miami, every casting call, every callback, every booking. He would call to make sure I was okay if we hadn't spoken in a while.
I owed him.
After I returned from Miami in 2009, for reasons unknown to me, Michael had chosen to put our friendship on the back burner. No matter how often I called and left a voice message or emailed him, he chose not to respond; even to the news of my marriage to Leland.
A year went by. I wondered if any of our mutual friends had heard from him. I was hurt and confused. Then, I wondered if he was okay.
Suddenly, one day, my phone rang and Michael's number and name showed up on the screen. Shocked, I answered the phone. He asked me to join him for dinner at one of our hangouts on Highland Ave. I was so happy to hear from him, I said I would meet him outside the studio in the parking garage and we would drive to the restaurant together.
At the appointed day and time, I parked my car, got out, and as I moved toward his car, he got out and stood up. What I saw terrified me. My round faced friend was thin, gaunt, and scary looking. I hugged his bony frame, looked him in the eyes and asked, Are you alright?
Suddenly, all those questions about why he ignored me for a year didn't matter anymore.
My friend and mentor was dying.
On this day one year ago, after 2 weeks of hospice visits, watching him fade and miraculously come back for a while, I sat beside his bed, my hand on his chest, while he took his last breath.
I remember Michael and I having so many conversations about life, and inevitably, we would laugh and say, Can we go home now?
