Where am I headed?

Joy in the Journey is a blog dedicated to chronicling my journey from author in virtual obscurity to well-known novelist. But more than that, it's my daily journey through life in this particular point in time and space that the Good Lord saw fit to put me in.

Unfortunately I'm not being a good steward of the gifts He's given me lately. I want to blog more often, but I find I am frittering away my day just wasting time. I spent yesterday outlining my new book with the help of my sister Robin. She's great at these things, she just says she has no interests in putting it all together herself. So she's willing to use her talent to make me rich & famous. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Don't know, I'll get back to you on that.

Between outlining and getting my husband off to work and reading a few mysteries to set the mood for my own book and walking the dogs and talking on the phone and making crafts for upcoming craft fairs where I promote my books, I'm not getting a lot of writing done.

Next door to the post office where we writers always have errands to run, lives a woman who spends what looks to me like most of her day sitting on her front porch smoking cigarettes. When I passed her house yesterday on my way to the library--another place where writers spend lots of time--there she sat in her chair watching traffic go by. When I came back about 30 minutes later, she was still there. I couldn't help wondering if she ever considers doing something other than sitting on that porch.

I'm not judging this woman. Part of me almost envies her. I can't see her disillusionment with her life. I don't feel her regrets or frustration over the dreams that never came true. Did she ever have dreams? Surely she was a young woman once who imagined more to life than sitting on her porch next to the post office and watching people come and go.

But can you imagine the ease of a life spent doing just that? No stress. No deadlines. No concerns over if today was productive or if she did anything to benefit mankind while the earth spun on its axis.

Maybe I think too much. Maybe I wake up every morning, determined to make good use of the next 17 hours I'll spend awake. Maybe I put too many demands on myself to be a productive member of society when all I need to do is sit on my porch and watch traffic. Maybe her days are less stressful than mine, but when it's my time to go, I want to have a life worth looking back on.

I still don't know where I'm headed. Scripture says, God's word is a lamp unto my feet. My lamp doesn't provide enough illumination to see what's waiting up ahead, just enough to take the next step. I'll take that next step in confidence, knowing that God is there with me and He knows what's around the bend, even when I don't.