I’m a writer, plain and simple. I don’t like to use “aspiring” because, well, writing’s what I do. I’ve been doing it for years – for the majority of my life as a matter of fact – and I think I’m pretty good at it. But I guess if you want to use aspiring, I am aspiring to make a decent living off of my writing. Okay, not true. I do aspire to become fucking filthy rich off of my writing, but it that’s not possible, a nice comfortable income will do.
My riches would primarily be for security. I don’t pine after Birkin bags (I just looked up Birkin to see how to spell it and saw a peach-colored bag that was dreamy, so people change), exotic cars, 30 carat diamonds or a closet that could double as a New York studio apartment. I’d be satisfied with a nice house. I’m fine with stuff you can find at your regular shopping mall. Traveling anywhere I want, whenever I want would be a priority. Oh, and also pretty high up there would be going to the grocery store without a budget or making mental calculations; If I see it and want it, just throw it in the cart. No need for a delivery service either, for the most part, I enjoy cruising up and down the aisles, discovering what’s on the shelves. The ice cream aisle is my favorite. Just thinking about it now brings a smile across my face.
But in the meantime, I wait and wonder if that will ever be my reality or will it just remain a fantasy, my transient joy. It’s hard to be a dreamer when you’re my age. Well at any age, but especially my age, when you’ve seen more years of disappointment than the years you lived when you began dreaming.
While there are many factors that have contributed to my failure to become someone who makes a comfortable to filthy rich living from my craft, more and more, I’m beginning to believe that the biggest contributing factor is me.
That’s good news and bad news. The good news is, if I’ve gotten myself into this mess, that means I can get myself out. I can figure out where I’ve gone wrong and make different decisions, better decisions going forward. But the bad news is if I haven’t done it in the last 25 years, what makes me think I’m going to do it now.
I often worry that any efforts I make to turn things around will be in vain. That if I haven’t done it by now I never will. It’s in those times of weakness and fear that I do like Whitney says in one of my favorite songs from “The Preacher’s Wife” soundtrack, and go to The Rock.
I’m trying to do Bible studies more often now, just my personal quiet time with God, usually in the morning, where I really try to get His word into my spirit. This is nothing new for me, I’ve been doing it since I was a freshman in college. But when life gets hard, and things don’t go the way I want, it’s hard to feel a connection with God, especially in this season in my life when I’ve experienced so much disappointment.
It’s like really God? You want me to have faith? You want me to try harder? You want me to try again? I have so many areas I could improve in in life in general, never mind just my writing? Which do I tackle first? Where do I begin?
Then the Lord led me to Matthew chapter 6 verses 25-33 NIV. In my Bible those verses are labeled as Do Not Worry. Now for those of you who don’t have a Bible, or don’t feel like looking it up online, I’ma go ahead and type them out here for you right quick:
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body what you will wear…
Wait a minute. Why am I typing this out when I can just look it up and copy and paste?
Okay, let’s try that again.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Through these verses I really felt like God was telling me, start with Me. I felt like He was saying make Me a priority and all these things shall be added unto you (see how I threw in a little King James).
I’m still working on exactly what it means to put God first, and how you do it. In the meantime, I do it in part by watching Christian television, studying my Bible and praying first thing in the morning. I’m trying to figure out other ways to do it too. Ways that are not, how do you say? so boring. It’s not always boring, but I must admit, it gets hard at times to communicate with an unseen force.
But that’s the cool thing about God. He knows what predicament we humans are in. And He’s in everything; He has so many ways to reinforce His word. To make His presence felt.
So one night, late night-early morning, I was up watching PBS. And there was this show on called “Life from Above” (it was either the Moving Planet or Colorful Planet episode). It’s all about what researchers and scientists have learned about Earth from the images captured by satellites in space. And in one particular segment, in one episode, the narrator was talking about how nutrient-rich dust from the bottom of a lake that dried up in Africa’s Sahara desert over a thousand years ago has been being carried in the wind over 2,000 miles to feed the lush rainforests of South America. They showed how the satellites in space captured this.
When I saw that, immediately I thought My God. This is what Jesus was talking about in verses 28 and 29 when He said:
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
All though here He references clothes, I take that to be a metaphor for life in general. Sure there are things that happen in life that we can’t explain, that may never be revealed to us until we get to Heaven. But I just love how technology and nature was backing up the Bible. But more importantly how God used it all to help me, to drive a point across to me…to you.
Thank You, Jesus.
I receive.
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