Yesterday I came to the end of a long journey and stepped into the light of a place where another would begin. There was a defining moment offered up by the cosmos by which I should have heard the echo of applauding stars . . . I should have raised my hands to the glory of a path illuminated before me . . . I should have allowed myself the small luxury of that euphoric and magical carpet ride that stops at my door on the rare and beautiful occasion. And metaphorically speaking, all those things were going on. There was a party in my head . . . but the flashing lights were blinding, flying confetti was pelting me in the face, and I was a little dizzy. Actually, I was exhausted. It must have shown in my face, because my traveling companion . . . my friend . . . asked what was wrong. "Let me see," she said. She was referring to the contract I held in my hand delineating the work involved in my new job. "There's nothing wrong," I told her, "It's just that, well . . . I've never lacked faith. It's just that I've never had any patience."

Don't get me wrong -- my character flaws are not the focus of this blog . . . If I had to choose between faith and patience, faith wins hands down. Impatience keeps me awake at night. Impatience keeps me in an almost constant state of anxiety. Impatience makes me edgy and a little arrogant sometimes. But if someone can tell me how to wait patiently when I KNOW phenomenally wonderful and amazing things are about to happen any day, I'd like to hear. Jumping up and down like a nervous, excited chihuahua trying to see what's coming just over the horizon HAS been exhausting, but my faith has never, not once, wavered. 

Today I'm celebrating the grace of God and the wonder of faith in my quiet way, and recalling the bright lights along the road of this journey that began eight months ago . . . 

Eight months ago, after thirteen years, I quit my job as a reading specialist in a chaotic inner city school in order to pursue a writing career. I started a blog. I found some freelance work. I continued writing the book I began many years ago. I found renewed passion in doing something I love. I don't regret it. 

Three months later, my husband lost his job of nineteen years as the building maintenance and groundskeeper for our church. He had outgrown it. It had stopped being good for him, for us, many years before. We see it clearly. The next day he went to work in his brother's shop as a mechanic. He loves the work.

We began a half-hearted search for a new home . . . the house we currently live in came with his job. We raised our children here. He had always been here for them. It's just us now . . . and we've always wanted a place of our own. But first I needed a "real" job . . . 

I still want to write. I need to write. 

I remembered an opportunity that my friend (the aforementioned traveling companion, and my former teaching partner) had told me about months ago . . . way before I quit my job, even . . . You'd be perfect, she said . . . it's great hours, great pay, she said . . . No, I had said then. I want to write.

And I needed to write . . . but I needed a real job.

There were applications involved. Educational conferences. Prerequisites. More applications. Deadlines. Missed deadlines. Opened doors. A phenomenal amount of work involved. On-line modules that amounted to whole college classes full of prep work  . . . all contingent on an actual interview. 

I got the interview. I hate interviews. I sucked at the interview. 

I got the job. 

I still get to write.

Househunting was a learning experience. We learned that a few months of "un" verifiable income was going to be a liability in actually buying a house . . . even after thirty years of collective, uninterrupted work history and stellar credit ratings. Go figure. After months of searching, we found a lovely rental that came with an astronomically high price tag and a passive-aggressive, communicationally challenged realtor. 

We waited for him to get back with us. . . And waited . . . And waited some more. He told us we "had an inordinately high list of needs" and he "hoped a more desirable buyer didn't come along while he was trying to work out the details." . . . somewhere in the process it went from a 12 month rental to a 24 month rental . . . Hmmm . . . 

Meanwhile, a cute rental that would fit all of our needs opened up. It belongs to some very dear friends who are willing to rent it to us month by month for a VERY reasonable price while we work up some verifiable income and look for the perfect home. . . Actually, the rental is so perfect . . . it just might BE the perfect home for us . . . 

Our profound joy and love for them precluded our need to gloat to the realtor. I sent a very professional, very polite response to his last abrupt and cryptic e-mail telling him thanks, but no thanks. I might have been smiling a little.

I'm still smiling. Sometimes life is just good, and a little courage and a leap of faith are all you need to get a happy ending. Eight months ago I claimed these words . . . and gave them to my husband . . . and waited . . . Thank you to all who have prayed for us and loved us through this. We believe.

Last weekend, on the spur of the moment, I drove to Chicago to visit my brother. The destination wasn't anything novel. I've been there easily dozens of times. But this time, we had lunch in a bistro off the beaten path . . . on an outside veranda where dogs are welcome . . . and the Black Hawks played Tampa Bay in the Stanley Cup Finals on a big screen. It was a rowdy crowd, and I tasted one of the best cheeseburgers in the city. After, I helped my brother do some grocery shopping at Mariano's and accepted the glass of Sauvignon Blanc he offered me in the frozen food aisle before 5:00 o'clock. And then I walked his wolf-dog in his trendy and charming, eclectic neighborhood. We bonded over our mutual disdain for the yappy, pompous pitbulls lunging at the fence at the end of her block. The evening before I drove home, my brother and I shared a plate of oysters at a seafood restaurant downtown. He showed me how to season each one differently and then savor the flavor without chewing. I wouldn't do it again . . . but now I can say I did it;)

By anybody's standards, I live a full life. I'm happy and blessed. There's not a single morning of my life that I don't wake up with a deep abiding gratitude for the health and happiness of a beautiful family and the possibilities of the day ahead. Sometimes I let the day take me where it will. Some days, I might be planning something. Okay, I'm always planning something . . . but recent life changing circumstances - some deliberately orchestrated and some unforeseen - have allowed the opportunity to take one day at a time and lose myself in small journeys. In other words, Chicago is about the farthest from home I expect to get for a while. It's not the way I expected my year to go. A few months ago, I was planning a trip to the Carolinas. My husband and I would drive down the east coast by way of beautiful West Virginia, hit the Outer Banks, and the port city of Charleston, where my earliest ancestors came to America, and then swing back west through the Great Smoky Mountains, where they settled later with their sprawling clans. We also planned to revisit Northern Michigan again in the fall with friends, and then celebrate the holidays and the New Year in a mountain chalet in the Rockies with our Colorado babies.

I guess it's fortunate that we never finalized any of these plans before my husband lost his job at the end of April. And this was just a few months after I took that wacky leap of faith from convention that would make Dave Ramsey twitch in his sleep . . . the one that led to this aspiring writing career and this very blog by which I've sought to share my journey. And that being said, let me take this opportunity to thank you and express my gratitude if you are reading this now, if you've read this far . . . and especially if you've been waiting for a blog, as some of you have expressed. And please accept my apology for not living up to my promise . . . as should be the implicit promise of all writers to share the darkest parts of their journeys, as well as their triumphs and epiphanies and sage observations. And let me tell you one lesson that I've learned in this uncertainty (before I get to my real point here;) . . . that it's easy to be honest and transparent if you're convinced that you've chosen your own destiny. If you've taken a risk, and declare that you'll accept the consequences, come what may, you're happy to share because it makes you feel brave. THIS does not feel brave. THIS requires REAL FAITH. We did not leap. We were pushed. The words come harder.

So suddenly, and without warning, our priorities have shifted as we find ourselves mutually quite without jobs for the first time in thirty years. Finding (paying) work is obviously our first priority. And since our home for the last nineteen years has been contingent on Stephen's job, finding a place to live runs a close second. Traveling is a luxury that is neither prudent right now, nor one we can afford. Am I disappointed? Profoundly. Am I sorry for missed opportunities? Regretful for any decisions I've made? No, and no. Because even in this REALLY scary place, my faith IS still intact. I am convinced those opportunities will come back around in a bigger way, that God has a plan, that he knew about this long before it ever happened, that HE orchestrated it for good, no matter what the intention was on the part of any mere mortal (Genesis 50:20), and that HE still offers us an abundant life (John 10:10) . . . even in the small journeys of everyday life . . . even in the places where you can't see through the rubble.

A friend came to visit me this past week. She brought me a dozen eggs from her hens. Why are some brown and some white? I asked her. The brown chickens lay brown eggs and the white chickens lay white eggs. What about black chickens? They lay white eggs. Who knew? I poured us each a glass of Riesling and we talked in my kitchen while I made dinner. After we ate, we took our wine into the hot tub and talked about life - work and children and chickens - until the sun went down. Small journeys teach us. Small journeys connect us. Last week, I finished the book I Am Malala written by the Nobel Peace Prize winning teenager who was shot in the head by the Taliban for daring to advocate education for girls. She shouldn't have lived, but she did, and well enough to still fight for the rights of Muslim girls and women all over the world. Small journeys inspire us. Last week, I pulled into my driveway and was greeted by a hummingbird buzzing beneath the golden petals of my hanging potted plant. We stopped putting hummingbird feeders out years ago . . . for lack of any hummingbirds, mind you. This one was an emerald green and he hung around long enough for me to get a picture of him. Small journeys remind us to slow down and surprise us with beauty. This morning when I woke up, the power was out, and it threw off my routine. No coffee. No elliptical. No internet. I sat down on the couch to contemplate . . . and my Riesling, sensing my displacement (and maybe feeling it, too) jumped up and snuggled close beside me. It was probably the resounding quiet (maybe the lack of coffee) that lulled us both back to sleep. But as I was drifting off in the rhythm of her doggy breaths, I felt the puppy love. Small journeys comfort and sustain.

Small journeys don't need money. Thay are not contingent on jobs or circumstances. Small journeys stitch together the minutes and the hours of our everyday lives. We just have to recognize them and appreciate them . . . and maybe shake off the despair and get up. A song that echoes in your head or a new recipe that you just happen to have all the ingredients for is a small journey. An earthquake or a quiet epiphany. A new skill learned or an opportunity lost. An enlightening conversation or an aching loneliness that brings you back to yourself. An open door begins a journey. A closed door inspires a different one. Journeys are bridges or roller coasters or mountain paths or meandering rivers. They are the other side of dark places reflected in sunrises over valleys or starlight on water. They can begin on a staircase or a porch swing. They can happen in the words of a poem or in the colors of a painting. A prayer answered is a journey . . . maybe even one you didn't remember praying.

Small journeys, when we lose ourselves in them, will take us home to places better than we've never imagined. My wish for you is that, no matter your circumstances, that you challenge yourself to see your journeys today, and name them. Give words to them and keep them close - like golden etching on your heart. It won't cost you a thing and it can't be taken away. Like the eternal riches of Heaven that you only had to accept or ruby red slippers that will take you home. You've always had the power.


Look for my update Small Journeys, Bright Lights coming soon:)