THRIVING
Hi y’all. I’ve been working on a book of essays (with photography) on the topic of thriving. I’m not an expert on it; just hungry for it. This is part of the reason I took a blogging break. I needed to get this baby wrapped up.
As an aside, here’s the back story on my book writing. I didn’t set out to be an author. I’ve been a musician and social worker, but I like to write. However, here’s what a writer faces (from the mouths of literary agents and publishers (other than self-publishers) themselves).
- The reality is that only 1 in 6,000 writers gets an agent.
- The reality is that unless you have a platform of thousands of people, make that tens of thousands, don’t even try to get a publisher.
- But go ahead and write anyway.
I was kind of bemoaning all of this in my prayers and I could just visualize God saying, “Hey, how do you think I feel? I tell people to love their enemies. That’s not exactly what people want to read.” (God cracks me up sometimes.)
Anyway, after sizing all this up, I decided to go ahead and write anyway. For myself. Just because. I don’t even know if I’ll have this book on thriving printed, but that’s ok. I got to feel a kinship with God and that’s worth a lot. And writing about thriving helps me thrive.
So here’s a sampling, based on the first essay in the book. It’s sort of a devotional. Try to read the scripture as if for the first time. It’s pretty inspiring.
Back in the day, there was a soap opera with this intro: “Like sand through an hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” (I was surprised to learn that that soap is STILL going strong. It’s now in its 56th season. Who knew?)
Anyway, that line reminds me of thriving (or not). Thriving can slip through our fingers. We get busy. We suffer loss. We give failure too much power. We get stuck. But in the words of Nightbirde, “You can’t wait till life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.”
We’ve all been dealt a certain hand in life. We can rue it…or accept it.
I used to have an insatiable need to cram life into my little box. To understand it. But the older I get, the grayer I get. (Ha!) And the more I accept the gray. I lean into the questions without having to find all the answers.
Accepting grayness allows me to let God be God, even when I don’t understand him. Especially when I don’t understand him. 1 John 4:8 says that God is love. Why do we find that so hard to accept? Maybe step #1 to thriving is accepting the simplicity of it all.
Here’s Psalm 1:1-3 from The Message.
“How well God must like you—
you don’t walk in the ruts of those blind-as-bats,
you don’t stand with the good-for-nothings,
you don’t take your seat among the know-it-alls.
Instead you thrill to God’s Word,
you chew on Scripture day and night.
You’re a tree replanted in Eden,
bearing fresh fruit every month,
Never dropping a leaf,
always in blossom.”
What a picture of thriving. Much better than an hourglass.