When the door opens...

Mom was a person of faith. She sometimes did things that didn't make sense to anyone but her because she was following her path of faith. The journey that was uniquely hers. It is something I am learning how to do myself.



239 Sussex Gardens



Yesterday, I was at lunch with a new-found friend who was explaining to me about a charity she founded some time ago. She explained how life had crept in, as it often does, and caused her good intentions to be put to rest, but suddenly and inexplicably this cause had come to the front of her mind and heart nagging to be looked at again. Obedient to the internal urge, she pulled this dream off the shelf and examined again. It is a tremendous project whose magnitude would cause some less innovative-types to explode with doubt. However, she prayed,  "This is such a big project, God. I don't even know where to begin."  Her answer came during her daily twenty mile bike ride. She was to sit down and make a list of the beginning steps, the start of her journey of faith. At the beginning of her list was to find an illustrator to make her logo.

It was my last day at a job that I knew I had to leave. Although it seemed to some strange that I would leave a job I seemed so particularly suited to, I had the strong internal urge telling me that it was a job that kept me from being who I really am and doing the creative things I do best. I fought the urge to leave for quite awhile, but when off for two weeks following surgery I could no longer ignore it. It was saying to me, "until you are obedient to your dreams, you will remain in this place of stasis and be unable to function in any capacity other than the requirements of this job." I, too, prayed, "This is such a big step; I don't really even know what I'm doing next!" The answer came, when you close this door by quitting you'll open the door to other possibilities. Putting in my notice was the start of my journey of faith. I worked my two weeks with people asking me what I was going to do. I said to them,  "I'm going to take a break and, hopefully, go back to being who I really am and doing what I really love." My manager who didn't want me to leave kept pressing me about what I was going to do. I finally answered, "I don't know. When the door opens I'll walk through it. Then I will know."

On my last day, a customer who I helped many times before came to the department I worked in. She looked for me. I wasn't there. She found someone else to help her. I was downstairs saying good-bye to my colleagues and taking a quick break. I kept feeling like there was something important I needed to get back to upstairs, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. I had been tying up any potential loose ends all day. I figured if I went back upstairs maybe I would remember or someone would say something to jog my memory. When I got there a colleague was trying to wrap up some alterations with a customer so she could go on her dinner break. I offered to take over so she could go ahead and eat. She took me up on the offer, but didn't know the name of the customer only that the customer had alterations that needed a rush and the tailor shop didn't think they could accommodate her. The door opened and I realized it was a customer I knew. I remarked that it was my last day and she remarked that she thought I was already gone. "Do you know of any good illustrators that could help me with a logo for my charity," she asked. I smiled. My best friend is an artist and I am meeting with another artist for a logo for something else this week. She tells me about her dream. I tell her that many of the things she needs, I know how to administrate. We talked and exchanged numbers and later had lunch. I have a new-found friend and a door that opened. I'm walking through it. I'll see where my faith journey takes me and on this journey I am certain one day I will know.