“Little by little, one travels far.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
And so here we are in a new place.
You the reader, me the writer in a different place. You would think that a simple change like where my site is located would be a near non-existent factor in actually writing, but the fact has been that the first post has proven to be quite challenging. The post that you are currently reading is the result of five previous posts abandoned for various reasons and insecurities. They just did not sit well with me. The words either fell flat or rested distantly from me. It felt like I wrote them all before. They were repetitive and reaching. Not many things prove themselves to be quite as frustrating as not being able to write words that encapsulate exactly what and how I feel.
After all, it’s been a week since I launched the new site and still, nothing new. Well, until now, of course. No words to fill up the new site that I have anticipated for several months. Surely you, the reader, wondered. Certainly you were nervous that somehow in my transition from the old site to the newly designed one that you were left behind and stopped receiving each of my posts directly in your email inbox. The worry and the restless nights that you must have experienced hoping that I was not discouraged and too uninspired write.
The reality being nothing less than the total opposite.
The sad, but true fact is that I have put so much pressure on myself to write one very simple post that I ended up writing five posts that were five of the worst ones I have ever written.
How do I know?
To put it simply, I would unsubscribe to my own blog if those were posted on my site. You would, too. Trust me on this.
Here’s what I am learning and relearning. More often than not, we put way too much pressure on ourselves and our effort at living life when it comes to dreams and the really important stuff. One day your life will just about be all be lived up. And at the end, as you look back, reminisce and softly grasp at memories of days you once lived, you will remember times when you gave up or quit too soon. No one will be able to fully and honestly tell if you quit on your dreams or opportunities too soon, but you will know. You will be warmed by the good times in your life when all seemed to go your way but I cannot help to think that you will also be saddened, maybe in a grieving type of way, by the days and moments you let go.
Dreams and the pursuit of them are worth holding on to with white-knuckled expectation. We often let go and collapse under the pressure of not doing what we once dreamed we would do. And as soon as we let go, we value ourselves progressively less.
Launching this new site was a huge step forward for me. No longer am I simply hoping to finish my book one day soon. I am taking steps that are moving me to work with an amazing editor and eventually a publishing deal. My dream is to become a writer. A step of the most crucial importance in becoming a writer is, well, actually writing. And not just writing, but constructing words that are honest and full, words that build stories that people feel both comfortable in and drawn to. Doing precisely that as a sustainable lifestyle is the ultimate dream. So when words do not come easily, a publisher rejects my manuscript and the dream get clouded by small failures, the dream becomes bigger. My ability dwarfed and my knee jerk reaction to let go thinking that it will never really happen. All dreams, and even the pursuit of them, seem completely accomplishable at some point. We change, not our dreams.
As I begin writing and recording my thoughts, hopes and life, on this site, I figured it would be appropriate to share a core conviction of my own; one that holds much gravity and weight in my own life, a central belief that moves me to believe and trust when life does not add up, does not make sense and is just flat out unfair.
God will always be God. I will always not be.
Risk to the level of your biggest aspiration, your most private fear. Damn the fear that leaves you following a broken path of halfheartedness and unresolved life. Discipline your day with prayer, learning new words of hope to speak. Trust God with all of your feeble heart, failing and fainting with each shuffling step. Do it. Today. Little by little keep moving.
The path does not stop where there is no safe place to put your foot. Those are the steps of greatness and grand gestures signaling to a God so willing to help you, “I am here and in this particular spot, I will fail and come up short again lest you intervene and help me. I trust you.”
Take the step. Every time. Some unsafe steps will cause you to fall. But the falling will not be the failing. It never is.
The principal reason for me moving to a new website was to lay to rest a part of my story, a slice of my life, that was damaged by the untimely and sudden death of my wife. The unsafest step for me being the first few following such an intimate failing in my life. It exposed a root that grew deep...my very belief and trust in God. This is another step. For me, much of the time since her death has been a slow reawakening to hope and the possibility of goodness in my life again. Hope glowing on the horizon, in the foreseeable and reachable distance. It is more than that today.
Hope is no longer a promise for one day hanging out there. Hope is now, alive and holding us. Hope is the bridge that led us to today.
And so here we are in this new place.