Wednesday, May 4, 2011

A Long Overdue Return to the Blank Page

It's quiet here...and my thoughts return to writing. At one time, it was not only what I did, but who I was, or wanted to be. I was young, ambitious, and eager to make my mark  in the world. Unfortunately, no one had discovered my talents, so I spent my days working as a secretary at a downtown law firm and my nights filling journals with new ideas. Each day at lunch I carried my copy of Writers Digest to the deli across the street to search for that golden nugget of advice that would catapult me from "ordinary" to "literary greatness."

Years later, I sit in my living room floor as my daughter sleeps, sifting through the cobwebs of my memory to find some grain of inspiration to fill the page of this, my first blog entry. I've written so much in the years since I sat in that deli -- contracts, news and magazine articles, advertisements, press releases, case studies, white papers, and multi-million dollar business proposals for a Fortune 500 company. Many would say that "I made it." I made a comfortable living tossing words on a page. Others will say "I lost it." I abandoned my artistic ambitions to pursue a career in the corporate realm.  Both are right.

Fortunately, life has a way of bringing us back to our roots, and teaching us the beauty of what we failed to see before. We are able to see the gifts we once took for granted, and for me, so many of those gifts lie in the ordinary moments of life that I used to overlook.  

As I enjoy a break from my career to focus on raising my daughter in these beautiful first years, I once again have time to reflect on those moments of grace when God whispers so quietly in my heart that I seldom hear His voice. These little graces guide me gently in the right direction, if I let them. And it's then they become real, actual graces with the power to transform my life from ordinary to truly meaningful. These actual graces are the bursts of energy that propel me onward in hope.

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