A Contemplative at Heart
I seem to have emerged from the womb as a contemplative. From an early age, with feelings swirling inside, I watched people and relationships … wondered about love, trust, meaning, and purpose … about the work of a Divine force in the midst. I pondered it all, giving life a long, loving look.
Guidance from Flesh-and-Blood “Angels”
With the guidance of those who saw something in me I hadn’t yet seen, I found my way to college, teaching, and eventually to seminary. It was in seminary (1975-1979) that I first experienced life in its abundance. I came alive.
I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.
~Jesus in John 10:10
A Knack for Writing
I learned I had native skills as a writer evidenced by this sampling of my seminary research paper evaluations:
- One of the finest/best
- Excellently conceived and clearly expressed
- Highly skilled at using academic learning for personal development
- Stimulating ideas: made me think twice about a topic I had shunned
- Unusual critical skills & strong qualities combined in an impressive integrated way
In 1983, the University of Dayton’s “Journal for Adventurous Thought” published one of my papers. I was thrilled to be considered an adventurous thinker.
A Startling Dream ~~ An Unorthodox Path
Because the dream message was clear, I accepted a path to ordination and served a church as an associate pastor for four years in the early 80s.
Seeking Guidance
And along the way, I made choices in my personal life that were not a good fit for me. I sought out mentors to help me grow and make sense of life … my life.
A Calling Emerges
Eventually, my passion for relationship healing led to ministry as a family therapist for those caught in the pain of addiction and as an Imago Relationship Therapist for couples.
Letters to the Divine
For years, I wrote letters to the Divine in my prayer journals seeking guidance to find my way through the challenges in my life. Sometimes wisdom beyond my own or from deep within flowed from my pen. I was awestruck when that happened.
A Divine Directive
Sometimes Divine guidance comes from unexpected sources. A compassionate nurse went out of her way to minister to our family in the midst of a crisis. Upon hearing my daughter recount our story, she looked at me and said, “You need to write a book about this.” In case I didn’t get the message, she repeated that directive two more times.
Entering the World of Writers
I dabbled and made a few false starts. I needed to learn the story-telling skills used by fiction writers, very different from research papers. After I retired from ministry in 2007, I got serious. I took classes, read books, joined writing groups, and found a writing partner and editor. I learned a lot from one group I joined. We collaborated on writing and publishing Sophia’s Table, Women’s Wisdom in Five Voices (2013). It took ten years and a lifetime to complete my memoir, A Long Awakening to Grace, published in 2017.
My Story
… is about my process of awakening to grace in the midst of overwhelming ordeals as a result of some of those personal life choices that were not a good fit. It chronicles my path to discovering that my challenging children were my greatest spiritual teachers … my path to becoming a caregiving mom.
Heart Ponderings Blog
… is a natural outgrowth. Writing gives meaning and purpose to my life as deeper layers unfold.
I offer my ponderings as a gift and am thrilled when readers find value for themselves.
What I do for fun …
My love language is quality time, so nothing is more fun for me than spending quality time with friends.
I enjoy reading, walking at a nearby arboretum, tending my native plant garden, raising monarch butterflies, the woods behind my house, the flowers and herbs on my deck, and watching birds. A recent highlight was playing hide and seek with a pileated woodpecker who squawked until I vacated my yard, giving a clear path to the suet feeder.
My disabled daughter, Nicole, lives with me in the Dayton, OH area. We enjoy watching movies based on true stories and following America’s Got Talent, Finding Your Roots, and This Is Us.
The antics of my Siamese-mix cat, Kiko, provide us with lots of chuckles.
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