Eyes on the Horizon.

(Image from my shop)

Today's post is from a handwritten piece I wrote a few weeks ago...I needed to let it sit for a while. Enjoy!

What a day today has been!  This Monday started with the usual routine and rigor staring at me in the face.  Nothing that exciting or extraordinary happening that I could see. 

And then slowly, one by one-like a line of surprises and delights, all in a row, one behind the other the day started to hand deliver God-moments.  Beautiful packages, wrapped in the finest strings, ribbons, and embellishments of grace.  

First, there was the peace-filled quiet as the girls surprisingly slept in.  An unexpected pocket of calm, a shade tree of quiet to sit under and breathe deep in.  A moment to scrawl a line here, a jotted thought there.  A slow ease into the morning, like the lazy blush of a morning sunrise. 

Next, an unexpected email from_______.  An order for prints from my shop! A quest for a giveaway print, and an invitation to a crafty weekend.  A trio of lovely packages, wrapped in sunshine and waiting at my Monday's doorstep. 

And last, a gift so large I needed to stretch my arms wide to receive it.  A surprise e-mail, saying a poem I'd written a LONG time ago had been chosen as a top 3 winner in an online contest.  What most people (or anybody really) don't know are two very critical things to this story.  One is that although it may seem like today has been all harvest and glory, there have been months (and months), leading up to this one day that have been reaping and sowing......watering, checking on progress....standing tall with a hand over my eyes-watching the horizon for any kind of growth, any sign of change.  Seeing nothing I've shuffled back inside, head down in prayer.  Wanting to be led by God's voice and strong, mighty hand-but still.  Wondering when the mighty would be visible among the minor and meek. 

Day after day-taking inspired pictures, planning creative things, living artfully, reaching out to others (and sometimes being rejected), blogging, living, striving, and still looking.  Holding fast to the promise that the empty seed packet of dreams in my hand I'd scattered like dandelion dust would amount to something. 

And the second thing others may not realize is this-I'd told myself (and God) that if I won this contest it was all-right to consider myself a "real" writer.  That somehow this would push me out of the ranks of the pretender/imposter writer I was impersonating.  That a win would be a sign that I could finally step up to the spotlight and say, although quietly for now-I am a writer. 

Today when I walked out to peek at the horizon my step had a little more lift to it.  My heart pounded a little harder.  

I lifted my hand to shade my eyes and saw it.  A plant of progress.  I squinted and looked again.  Were my eyes, filled with an extra dose of optimism, seeing a mirage of the miraculous or was it really growth in plain sight?  On second glance I saw it even more clearly.  A beam of hope, a bloom of beauty.  Growth.  Standing strong, tall, and in all it's glory-humbly showing me the mighty and the miraculous.  A sign to keep tending, keep being led by God's dreams, rooted deep within my heart.  A sign to celebrate and sow on.