Please God, tell me that I am not lost. Again!

Have you ever had those words, ping around inside your mind? This morning as I sat visiting with our dear friend Greg, I could feel the tears welling up, as my tender throat ached as I held it all in….

I have been wondering it a lot lately. Asking myself, did I take a wrong turn somewhere. Did I want to much? Did I mistake that inner voice as something else, a while back?

I think we ask those questions when we find ourselves on what seems to be a now-where road, with just road in front and road behind with no clear destination in site. Or, at least for me, that is when fear and doubt make their way into my heart and into my mind and then my body and finally I feel the flutter of panic in my very core.

Other than a wife and a mother – which God so graciously granted me, I never really aspired to be anything other than a writer. And, even my writing wasn’t plotted out, or an educated move. It just was. Just like the fact that I am right-handed, or strong-willed or… it just seemed to come with the genes that I was born with.

So was it too much to decide that I wanted to be a specific kind of writer? Was I suppose to be content with knowing that I write and I had and have those who read my writing? Did I forget somewhere to be grateful for the opportunities handed to me?

I only wonder in this moment as my heart palpitates and I feel fear wanting to take me over…. when all I can see is the road behind with no knowledge of the road ahead…wondering what bends and bridges and obstacles are waiting to greet me.

I wonder now.. almost out loud, was I wrong to listen to that still small voice, deep down in me, beckoning me off the freeway. Whispering take a left…… go right……take this back road. It isn’t simply enough for me anymore to write only about brilliance, as brilliance is everyone if one chooses to look.

For the last couple of years, my heart only wants to write about those things that give credit to the Author of Brilliance. To a loving God who, made me in HIS image, and not is a church y kind of way, as church, for the sake of church and programs, doesn’t satisfy me either. But, rather in that way when against all odds, we create because were created, by a creator to do so.

I was reminded of this old hymn this morning as I sat with my bible and cup of coffee – petitioning the Lord once again to use me in some way that felt tangible to me. The words go: I love to tell the story of unseen things above, Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love. I love to tell the story, because I know tis true; It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do. I love to tell the story, twill be my theme in glory, To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

The words of that old hymn were played out so well this past weekend as I sat and listened to one of my country favorites T.Graham Brown share his story at a local Cowboy Gathering. He shared how alcohol just about consumed him. How in the midst of the high points of his career, in the midst of having everything he ever wanted he turned to alcohol to shut down those small voices that could have required him to leave the highway he was on for a more back-roads life. And, Alcohol became his vehicle off the highway and onto a life with bigger purpose.

My story is a little different than his.. or maybe not a lot. Alcohol isn’t my vice, and no tragedy had to happen for me to listen to the voice inside of me telling me to veer right….I already knew what God had done in my life. All that he had saved me from. And, being asked to use the little bit of talent that he gave me to share HIS story, was a road I welcomed and still do.

So while I sit here, watching those I have mentored fly past me. Swooshing away the fear and the doubt, I can say with full confidence that while I am not there, where ever there is, yet…. I did not take a wrong turn. I just have to believe that God is saving me for something big, tho it may seem small to the world, it will no doubt be the story I was born to tell.