Five Year Anniversary Of Writing Full-Time

All these stories and the songs to accompany them.
All these dreams and the reality that disrupts them.
The faces and the places and the people and the pressure. Wrapped around with a red weave of wonder. Tied tight with a seal of adventure and promise.
Blink and it feels like yesterday. But yesterday was a blur while today is crystal clear.
There are beaches you have made imprints on. There are mountains you have slid down in a landslide. There are the spaces and the scenes and the sequences that fill your mind morning and noon and night.
This is the way God made you. For some reason. For some purpose.
For so long, you’ve made it about you. No one but you. But finally, while cast away on that lone island, looking like some kind of crazy monk searching for purpose, you found a glimmer of hope and a sense of calm. The ocean tides no longer tried to wreck your soul. Instead, they remained calm enough to sail on. You’re still sailing, still hoping, still dreaming, knowing this thing isn’t about you and never has been.
In your head are broken and bruised characters all searching for some kind of hope. All hoping to arrive to their destination. All trying to find this little thing called hope. A little thing like a key to a magic kingdom.
The doors you’ve spent so long knocking on belong to another house. You find yourself on a hilltop glancing at opened doors to log cabins. You’re wondering why they’re inviting you in, but you’re willing and able to step through.
You’ve learned that tomorrow isn’t promised. You’ve accepted that today isn’t yours to dictate. You’ve realized that yesterday doesn’t have to define you.
With a backpack strapped to you full of promise, you keep hiking up the mountain. The only difference is the reason why. The only change is inside of your heart and soul.
For every pinprick of regret, you know there are wounds full of woe out there. There are unimaginable tales that are true and that need to be told. There is darkness but there is light woven throughout it.
The last five years have torn down much and built things in its place. The ground is different. The landscape has changed. Yet the thing that has remained the same is the sun that rises and sets on each day. It rises with hope and departs with a promise.
Whatever the words will amount to, and whatever these past five years will result in, so be it. There are much more important things than these words and these tales. There are lives—beautiful, precious lives—that can be impacted. There are souls that can be woken up. There are hearts that can be moved.
Time is a strange thing. You no longer try to run from it. You’ve made peace with it and hope that peace ends up working its way into those words and those stories and maybe, possibly, through God’s help, some lives.
It’s a cool thing to celebrate anniversaries. But it’s even cooler when there’s something more besides yourself to celebrate. 

4 Comments

  1. Muskrat! Congrats…may the next 5 years be full of great success…especially the kind that doesn't involve you being responsible for driving anyone, anywhere.

  2. Thanks Carol, Kyle, and Eric! Wait a minute–are you all meeting right now to talk about HOME RUN 2? Or another sequel called DRIVE 2: THE DRIVER?? Don't start without me!!! (And Chuck Norris)

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