I Used to be Someone

Lori Strawn

I used to be someone. A dozen years ago, back in California, I was the Managing Editor for a major educational company. I made fabulous money, more than my husband, an engineer at Boeing. I did by a small landslide. I worked hard, but I was respected. My staff said they knew to jump to attention when they heard the staccato clack of my heels on the linoleum. Then I decided to focus on entering the publishing world. I didn't stick a toe in, I dived in headfirst. I quit my job and started writing. And then we moved to Kansas.

Now I'm a freelancer, mostly because the publishing world turns out to be a very exclusive (and somewhat snotty) crowd who looks down its nose at newcomers, and Kansas is not exactly a hub for writing careers. My "salary" is laughable (hence the quotation marks).

These changes in lifestyle have sunk me into something of a miasma. I was so sure that this is what God wanted for me. I've wanted to write books all of my life. I was sure I'd be published by now.

And yet I remember realizing, back in my working days, that I had not seen my own backyard in daylight in over a year. I was never home in daylight. Our cats took to dragging items of my clothing out of the hamper and forlornly toting them around the house because they missed me. Nowadays, I often have a cat on my lap while I work.

And then there's Prayables. Sue Diamond's Big Idea has been a saving grace, in many ways. At last I'm writing exactly, precisely what I want to write and being not only lauded for it, but paid. It's not unreasonable, is it, that I want this humble website to become huge, a worldwide phenomenon?

In my baby book, my mother writes that my earliest ambition was to be "a good witch who flies around on her broom helping people." I still want this. Though I doubt the ability of any broom (however magical) to support me, I can still do good through my writing. Darn it, I want to help people and writing is the only magic wand I've got. I have to use it.

I like to believe that my luck is going to change, that at last, I'm on the right track. But I'm plagued with fear. What if this isn't it? What if God doesn't want me to be a writer? What if my entire life has been an episode of "Let's Make a Deal" and while I've been waiting for Door Number 2 to open, there's been a zonker prize behind it the whole time?

All I can do is to continue to hope, to believe I'm here (struggling) for a reason, even if I don't know what it is. Sometime faith is all we have. Fortunately, it's enough to live on.

Whispers to a Writer

I ask You today for inspiration in my writing.
Let my imagination burst into bloom
like a new rose in June,
petal by petal unfolding fresh wisdom and energy.
You are my most bountiful resource.
Tune my ear to Your merest whisper.
Let me hear You in those around me,
in nature, in the quietest recess of my heart.
Let my words be an echo of Your boundless wonder.

-Lori Strawn

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