Loving what we do is the first, best step. . .

I’ve discussed topics similar to this before in blog posts, but something a friend said to me recently brought it to mind once again.  I could never have imagined as a child that I’d spend my life as I do.  I loved writing stories as a young girl in grade school and loved speech class in high school too.  For some unknown reason, standing in front of my classmates and talking didn’t scare me.  I felt exhilarated.  But I didn’t have any notion then that both loves would play such a big role in my life as an adult.

True, I wandered around a lot before getting here.  I had many false starts, you might say.  I tried elementary teaching.  Tried to make a marriage work.  And I went to graduate school, none of which had been on my radar screen when I was young.  Alcoholism, codependency and drug addiction hadn’t registered there either.

However, I see now, ever so clearly, that each activity was leading up to the path I’m on now, a path that allows me to connect with tens of thousands of people every year.  If I stop and consider all the people I have connected with through my books over the years, I “have met” considerably more than 5 million people and there are more to come.  I’m truly amazed by the truth of this.  No person could have convinced me when I was young, or even when I came into the recovery rooms in 1974 that my life was going to unfold as it has.

I think the key has been my willingness to grow into that which called to me.  Had I had an easy experience getting to know God, I wouldn’t have been compelled to journal so much.  I wrote about that in the last post.  But my search to have what others had was the action that opened the door “making the rest history,” as is so commonly said.  I desperately wanted what others had, but it eluded me.  God answered but not in the way I had expected.

So here I am today.  Age 73, loving life, loving the work I do, eagerly waking every day to see what God has in store and being willing, each moment, to carry to my readers whatever His message is.  The icing on the cake is that I have had a second chance at marriage and this one complements my life in every way.  I’m convinced that when we are willing to do our part, God meets us head-on.  I don’t intend to ever quit doing my part.  How about you?