Images of houses remind me of the safety and security of home. I have been a housewife for two-and-a-half decades. The only exceptions during that period has been three part-time jobs, the longest lasting less than a year-and-a-half. Most of my time has been spent at home, where I have felt and do feel the most secure. My husband is a quiet person. If I want to light scented candles and move from room to room silently, stopping in one room to read, going to another to stitch, lighting in the bonus room for a movie, this place is a virtual heaven-on-earth. It is truly a haven in the storms of life.
Pathways intrigue me for many reasons. I think the mystery as to just where the road that is pictured in an art print or photo might lead is part of the draw. Images of pathways in the forest remind me of the serenity of nature. Perhaps, layered somewhere under my conscious mind is the idea that a pathway indicates a way forward. Movement. I am very, very, very easily bored. So much so that at times I feel as if it is almost a curse. In truth, how we are wired is a gift. This gift keeps me creating, writing, stitching, talking, learning.
I've gone an awfully long way around the point today. The picture was, in fact, my theme. That bicycle, while lovely and adorned with living plants, is completely stationary. Utterly so. It has to be picked up and carried to be moved. While, since it is largely formed in the image of a bicycle, the sight of the planter evokes the idea of motion, there is no motion in the item itself, nor any potential for it to carry anyone anywhere. It doesn't have any wheels!
For dreams to be carried out, a vision has to be plotted. The vision adds wheels to the mission. The forward motion is supplied by hard work. Some of this work, I have learned, is done in the dark, with only the light of faith to show the way. When my faith bulb is dim, I have to cry out to my Creator for help. Today I read the parable of the talents in the New Testament. If I fail in my mission to use my gifts for His glory, let it not be because I did not exhaust myself, wringing myself completely out of pride, laziness and selfish ambition in the process. Let it also not be because I stopped believing that I could hear from God. There is a direct line from my prayer room to the throne room. God's word, the Bible, makes this very clear.
I'm writing a novel, which I hope to have a rough draft of by my fifty-fourth birthday next month. It is my first strong effort in many years to push the envelope in using my writing gift, which God affirmed in me as a young person when I was awarded a Manship Fellowship to LSU's school of journalism. Though I have been published many times in print when my kids were small and on the internet, I have not primed the pump of God's plans for my life, even though I have lived a good deal of it. I like to think of the next part of my life as that path heading into the mysterious forest. There will be days when I break into the open sunshine and others when I will enjoy the mystery of the deep woods, God's hand in mine. What an adventure life is meant to be!
