Possibilities

I’ve missed this. Hands on the keyboard, Hazelnut coffee by my side and ricocheted thoughts landing on a screen.  Sitting here in my broken chair feels akin to stepping into a favorite pair of boots. Comfortable and familiar.

Of course, it was a blessing to step away from my desk and enjoy family, but life is about balance and I’ve learned over the past couple of years that when I don’t write…I don’t have balance.

How about you?

What lends balance to your life?

Balance for this DoAhead Woman comes when the teeter totter isn’t so weighted by perspiration on the one end that the inspiration end sits high in the sky.

High and seemingly unattainable.

Google.com defines defines balance as  “a condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions.”

Like the teeter totter, many of my day to day rituals are characterized by highs and lows of inspiration and perspiration.

Dishes need to be done, mounds of laundry cleaned, garbage taken up…perspiration exceeds inspiration.

Decorating for Christmas, praying with a friend, writing to “ya’ll”…my teeter totter tips toward inspiration. Every single day my teeter totter oscillates between perspiration and inspiration. But since it’s the beginning of a new year I can’t help but focus on my teeter totter from a broader perspective.

Today, I’m thinking about years gone by and past seasons of perspiration and inspiration. I’m lucky enough to have spent most of my working hours tending to things I cared about. Over the decades the exact nature of my labor has shifted.

The early years were marked by ongoing education. I loved college and graduate school. God put a fire in my belly and a craving in my brain to learn everything I could about my field of study. It was work. But I loved it.

Balance during those years took the form of dance. The teeter totter would tilt. I’d slip on my leg warmers and hit the dance studio. “Aaaaah yes. This feels good. Time to move, dance. Create.”

Before I knew it marriage and a job consumed most of my hours. As we all know-success in work as well as success in marriage requires tremendous perspiration. In those day’s I sought inspiration by participating in community theater. “Being” someone else on a stage was a wonderful way to put the perspiration of daily life back into perspective.

And then the babies came.  Three in three years. Up until then I thought I knew what perspiration was. Go ahead and laugh with me, at me, whatever suits you. We all know that nothing humbles a human being more than staying home with little people.

I can honestly say I have no recollection what creativity looked like in my life back then. No doubt the rapid loss of brain cells during that season robbed me of any inclination toward inspirational endeavor what-so-ever.

Our trios’ childhood years melted away as quickly as a snowflake on a warm sidewalk. Today my adult and nearly adult children are a breath away from spending more time outside of our home than in it. It’s weird. Really weird. {And may I say I don’t particularly care for it.}

It was during the season of parenting teen children that I recalled a favorite childhood memory. I was in the first grade and my teacher, Mrs. Miller, asked the class to write a story. I wrote a “book” about a valentine.

I remember the yellow, antique looking paper that bore my careful script and first grade caliber illustrations. I also remember stapling the edges and creating a binder for my “work of art”. However, more than anything else, I remember how pleased my teacher was with the story. She loved it. And I loved her loving it.

The recollection of this event came to me sometime in 2010. It was then I began to wonder if my perspiration-heavy teeter totter needed (was destined?) to tilt back to a form of creativity that brought me pleasure so many years before. I began to wonder if what I needed was to re-visit the creative pleasure of putting pen to page.

And so today…I write.

I am certain that (at least for now) my opportunities to write are God’s way of sitting on the other end of my teeter totter when I get too caught up in daily/weekly perspiration.

How’s your teeter totter?

If the perspiration in your life is top-heavy would you do something with me?

Dream a little.

Heck…dream a lot.

Dreaming means to contemplate the possibility of doing something. (Google.com).

I believe that dreaming is an important factor in keeping perspiration and inspiration in “an equal or correct proportion.”

If the idea of dreaming is intimidating (it can be for me) focus on its simple definition.

“…to contemplate the possibility.”

I love that.

It’s not too big.

It’s not so hard.

It’s possible.

Sometimes “possible” is all it takes to get started.

Last week’s posts on DoAhead featured pebbles meant to ripple our heads and hearts with thoughts of possibilities.

I shared this quote from Winnie the Pooh:

Friends, as we cross the threshold from 2014 to 2015 my prayer for each of us is that we ask the One who created us to reveal what it is we are looking for. I am convinced that the single most important step anyone of us can take towards the fulfillment of our dreams is to ask this question:

“God, whatever you made me for, whatever gift(s) you have entrusted to me or choose to cultivate in me, will you grant me a mind to discern it, a heart to embrace it and a will to pursue it.”

One of my favorite reads from last year was the book Restless by Jennie Allen. My copy is dog-eared, high-lighted and decorated with stick-em notes protruding from its borders. I’ll wrap up this overly wordy post (I really did miss you!) with an excerpt from the book.

When Jesus was about to do one of the most notable and beautiful miracles of his life here, he looked around and saw that thousands of people around him were hungry. Then, rather than create something out of nothing (which he was obviously capable of) he said to his disciples essentially, “Does anyone have food?”

One of the disciples found a little boy with a few fish and loaves of bread. Then Jesus fed thousands with the few materials that the little boy held.  That little boy had something of value in his hands: it was starting place. It was the something that great things could be birthed from.

We hold things. We don’t think much about it but there are hungry people all around and God is looking to take the seemingly insignificant little pieces tucked away in our lives to multiply them and feed his people.

This journey is a chance to lay out what you have, what you know, and hand it up to God.

Dear DoAheads I must stop or this will be a book not a blog post! But I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am to hand up my possibilities to God for this New Year.

Will you join me?

As we do so, let’s remember this paraphrase of Jennie Allens’ words, “what we already hold may be the starting place …the something that great things can be birthed from.”

Today (and for many day’s to come) I’ll be praying for His will and glory to be revealed in the possibilities that you and I already hold!

Oh, and don’t forget…

Angie Ryg is hosting Inspire Me Monday today!

These lovely ladies (including your DoAhead friend) will be co-hosting with Angie: Denise J. Hughes and Anita Strawn de Ojeda. Below are your  1-2-3′s for linking up and living life inspired!

1. Link up an inspirational post from the previous week (just one please.)
2. Visit two other contributors (especially the person who linked up right before you) and leave an encouraging comment.
3. Share the inspiration three ways…you can tweet, share a post on Facebook, Pin-It, Instagram-It, WHATEVER form of social media you choose…just SHARE!

Your dreaming DoAhead friend,