A reader responded to my blog of a few days ago (“BY THE DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT”) saying the feelings I described were often the signal a BIG CHANGE was coming.
Boy, did that comment bring back memories!
She’s absolutely right. A couple of years before I found my art again, I felt my heart raging in the same way. I thought I was losing my mind.
My husband and I were living in our first home. I had a beautiful little girl. I was able to stay home and care for her. We lived in a charming New England town and I had a small but wonderful group of friends. What more could I want?
But my heart was in turmoil. In desperation, I called the minister of the local Episcopalian church. (I haven’t been to church in years.) I told him I wasn’t a member of his church, but could I see him for a few minutes? I don’t know why he even agreed to see me, but he did.
I described what was going on and asked him what it meant. He said something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “When our heart is in turmoil, sometimes it’s God trying to speak to us.”
I felt dumfounded. First, I don’t WANT to hear voices! Second, I’d never met anyone who heard God speaking to them. (Usually we know people who do want they want and call it God’s will after the fact…) I asked him if he’d ever heard God speaking to him, and what that sounded like. He said, “I’ve never heard a voice, if that’s what you mean. But there have been times, very rare times, when I see His presence in my life. And I KNOW it’s Him.”
I went home and waited patiently for a postcard from God.
A few years went by before I finally found my path and worked my way back to my artistic self. But I never forgot what that minister said.
A few years later, when I took the “Empowerment for Women in the Arts” workshop from Deborah Kruger, I remember equally powerful words spoken by her.
She said, “When I am in my studio, and I am working, I feel like I could die right then and there, and it would be okay. Because I am doing what God put me on earth to do.”
I still haven’t heard very many voices, at least none from God, as far as I can tell. But I have had that feeling Deborah spoke of, many times, since then.
And maybe Lisa is right. Maybe this new turmoil is indeed another bellwether for great change.
I’m a little afraid—change is HARD!! You cannot see where it will take you, because it’s…well…different…than what you have now. And though I talk easily of God sometimes, I still don't consider myself a religious person in the traditional sense. Spiritual, yeah. Religious, no.
But I also know now you cannot run from change, and the true path of your life, without losing something precious. What Julia Cameron calls “your authentic self.”
If you would like to read a wonderful version of this process, check out Anne Lamott's moving book, "Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith". You can click on the title of this blog to see it. If you don't die laughing first, you will learn how she learned to hear a tiny voice in the midst of the turmoil, a way to see that first step to change.
