“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”– Proverbs 13:12

I’m beginning to learn that the timeframe of my life is mostly (totally) out of my hands. I pretty much have zero control of when my dreams will finally be realized. Zip. Nadda.

Take a couple of weeks ago for instance. I walked into the gorgeous women’s co-working space of Muses & Visionaries ready to embrace a productive New Year. Two minutes later, I’m trembling uncontrollably, stomach in knots, watching boxes of Issue Two of M&V Magazine being delivered through the front door and into the hands of the brilliant women who created it.

Because inside those boxes, a personal dream of my own was waiting to be unwrapped.

Flash back (many) years, to a quiet teenager sitting cross-legged on yellow shag carpet flipping through stacks of the latest fashion magazines. She appreciates all the gorgeous photos and celebrity updates, but she is instead drawn inexplicably to each one of articles. She reads every word. She fantasizes – not about being one of the beautiful models on a shoot in NYC – but about becoming a contributing writer with a little bio and a byline. And so, she writes. Diaries, essays, poetry, short stories – all she wants to do is sit in her room and write.

But eventually that dreamer-girl grows up and gets a sensible degree in a solid healthcare profession. She marries, works, moves around the country, works, moves back to her hometown, tries (forever) to have a baby, works, has a miracle baby, tries (forever again) to have a second baby, works, finally gives up her second baby dream and moves to Florida with her little family to begin a brave, new life and more sensible work.

But her kind and sensitive husband encourages her to take some time off her work. He sees she is grieving and dying a little bit more inside each and every day. He encourages her to explore her options. He challenges her to return to her childhood dream. He sends her to a writer’s workshop for her birthday. He empowers her to take a chance.

So, she writes. She walks. She works with sea turtles. She writes some more. She drives on school field trips. She cries, and she waits (and waits and waits) for whatever comes next.

Sad stuff happens. Joyful stuff happens. Many years pass. Her son grows.

Friends come and go. And still she walks and she writes…

…and she braces herself as she waits some more.

And then, on a beautiful, cold, spectacularly bright Tuesday morning a stack of fresh M&V Magazines are placed into her arms by a smiling blond-haired angel named Sasha. They are surprisingly heavy. They smell delicious. They feel like Hope.

She looks down into the radiant face of Lesley Stahl on the cover (sorry, Ms. Stahl, but the metaphor works) and as she cradles the bundle close to her heart she realizes on an intuitive level the gift of Grace that she has just received.

For although she was always a writer at heart, now she is a writer at work.

(Visit the wonderful site of www.magazinemv.com and SUBSCRIBE today)!

birthing-day: a little story of hope