The Postcard

It all began so innocuously. I was just going through the mail. I almost didn’t read it, it looked like junk mail. It was a little white postcard no bigger than a 3x5 card. No fancy writing. No four-color graphics. But read it I did and things have never been the same.

We all have dreams and desires for our lives. We make plans when we are young and pursue certain paths that we think will get us to where our passion tells us we have to be. But like life does for most the path diverges, distractions come, reality sets in and passion gets put in a box, on top of a shelf, in the back of a closet.

I was blessed enough to pursue my passion in college and then continue the exploration of my dream after graduation. My path even took me out of my home town and to Tinseltown where I was going to set the world on fire. My life on the dream scale was squarely a 7-8.

Soon enough reality, distractions and diverges beset me. I still wanted my dreams to come true but they were not as visible as they once were. There was too much noise, too much confusion, chaos, and fear. Always that dreaded fear was tapping on my shoulder.

The thing about walking on our passionate path as opposed to the average, everyday path is that the passionate path cannot be walked alone. It is too fraught with danger. There are those who do not want us to live passionate lives and will throw all the fear, insecurity, guilt, shame, anxiety, you name it at us to stop us. Because with passion comes joy.

I was trying to live passionately but I was alone. And it was not working. So after a couple of years I decided I had a new dream and passion and I moved home. I packed up the old dreams and put them in that box, on the shelf, in the back of my closet. I never thought of them again. And I was fine with that - for the next 12 years. Really I was.

Or so I thought.

Here’s the thing about our dreams. We don’t put them in our hearts. They do not originate in us. They are created by God. And because that is so, dreams will not die no matter how much we try to ignore them, bury them, replace them, drown them or do any other of the myriad things we conjure up to kill them.

In the intervening 12 years God got a hold of me in a deeper way than He ever had before. It started slowly. He slipped in when I was looking the other way but once He was in my heart He was not giving up His ground and He was staking claim to more. I was no longer alone. Whatever path I walk for the rest of my life God will be with me. And that makes all the difference.

Apparently, during the summer of 2007 God decided that I had forgotten about that box in my closet long enough. It was time for a nudge. The postcard went to my parents’ house. It didn’t even come to mine. They were out of town I and was sorting their mail, otherwise they would have thrown it out with the junk mail. God is clever.

The card was an invitation to a meeting from an actor’s union I belong to but had long since put my membership on hold. I no longer received correspondence from them. Why this? Why now? God says my heart was strong enough now.

In the past, I would never have gone to the meeting - too insecure to walk into a meeting where everyone knew everyone and I knew no one. So, I put the postcard aside and went about my day. But I couldn’t. That card kept nudging me from my purse. That’s the thing about God; He’s rather relentless when He wants to be. The meeting did sound interesting. It was during my lunch hour. Why not just check it out? What could it hurt? I might meet some interesting people.

Boom. Box off shelf, out of closet, lid blown off and passion all over my heart. I had forgotten what true passion feels like. No matter where my life takes me I will never be able to get this back into a box again.

I walked into that meeting in the summer of 2007 and I have not missed one since. They embraced me, I embraced them and my path has changed forever. I made more money in 2008 following my first passion than I did my replacement passion. (I hope to write that sentence every year for the rest of my life.)

What’s the difference this time? I did not walk into that meeting alone. Now make no mistake, attempts to thwart me are being made. There are evil-doers (sorry about the Bush reference) at every turn trying to fill me with fear, insecurity, etc. But things are different as I pursue my dream this time. I am not walking my passionate path alone.

We are built to live with passion and pursue our dreams. God does not gives us dreams to have us ignore them. They are given to us for His glory. He wants us to live with a passionate heart for Him. The heart is a muscle for a reason and it needs to be vigorously exercised. What is God nudging you about?

Check your mail carefully. You never know what your heart might find.

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