Strings

Yesterday during a VT lesson, someone asked me how Craig and I met.  That's a potentially really long story and I've learned over the years to start with the edited version and then wait for follow up questions.  I start with "we met in high school..." and typically that's enough for the average inquirer.  With a story as personal as that one is for me, it aches a little to see people's eyes glaze over in the middle of it, so I don't continue unless they specifically ask for details.  Yesterday they asked for details.  It's been awhile since I've told that story in its entirety, so I was happy for the opportunity.  When I finished answering all their questions, they both sat back and said, "What an incredible life you've had."  

They're totally right.

People ask me all the time about my adoption story, and how I reconnected with my birth mother.  And when I tell them, they always say, "What an incredible life you've had."  

There are a handful of stories in my life that evoke that response from people.  

When I talked to those women yesterday afternoon and they marveled at my determination, my focus and my drive in life, I had to stop and tell them that I'm not actually determined, focused or driven.  Really.  If you ask anyone who knows me well, they would never use those words to describe me.  I don't stare adversity in the face and walk through it boldly.  I'm not courageous.  I quit when things are hard.  I curl up into a small heap of helplessness and cry when the road looks like it might be steep or even slightly inclined.  I don't keep running when I'm tired.  I don't put my mind to a thing and get it.  I am not strong willed.  

But there are a handful of things in my life that have pulled me, like divine strings, toward goals that I don't recall ever consciously making.  After 40ish years, I can look back with a bit more insight and perspective and see that wherever those miraculous, incredible stories have occurred in my life, I have had divine help.  Those eternal strings pull me when I would rather just sit.  They compel me to do things I would never attempt on my own.  Like joining a church my parents didn't approve of.   Like pursuing, hunting down and capturing marrying Craig. Like singing in an amazing choir.  Like writing this blog.

Sometimes I don't feel like writing it all down.  Sometimes I feel like maybe it's all just fluffy and won't matter to anyone now or in the future.  I get discouraged and impatient and I resist.  But that never lasts for long.  Something bigger draws me back to this computer and helps me remember the blessings that occur on a regular basis in my life, and I am compelled to write them down.  

I am so grateful to have retold that Craig story yesterday, to have bonded with those women, and to have been reminded of the remarkable things that have happened in my life.  There are more remarkable, miraculous, wildly improbable things coming.  I can feel those divine strings tugging at me to walk in directions that don't make any sense.  And fortunately after all these years, I know enough to stop resisting and just walk there anyway.