It Starts With Baby Steps

A whisper in my heart beckons me day and night.

I awake from dreams with it hanging over me, peering into my sleeping soul.
/stop/
And I roll over.

I feel it behind me, calling my name.
Bridget. Bridget. Bridget.
But I close my eyes and assume if I can’t see it, it can’t see me.

But the whispers turn to shouts.
The coincidences fall into a line, obviously no longer coincidental.
And my skeptical little mind says, “well…what if…”

“I sound like one of them,” I tell Marshall.
“I sound like a Churchy McChurcherson.”
And he laughs and pulls me close.
With his arms of affirmation around me,
I know that I must follow my heart.
And in so many ways…I want to.
but.then.i.dont.
It will be hard.
I must be careful, weighing my words and tempering my thoughts.
I’ll have to be open, honest, and – worst of all – vulnerable.

But, for reasons I may never understand, I perk up as I ponder the possibilities.
Exhilaration courses through my veins.
The moment I’ve been waiting for is here…
…it just doesn’t look like I thought it would.
My insides shiver, as if a spirit has blown through me.
“Hmmm…” I think. “Maybe it has.”

My mind whirs with ideas, and I hold them up to the light of day.
And that’s when I begin to crumble.

“That’ll never work, you crazy fool,” I hear from my demons.
“You weren’t cut out for this.”
“You aren’t good at that.”
“You aren’t big enough, strong enough, spiritual enough for this.”

“You never know until you try,” my soul says sotto voce.
“The heart might lie, but I don’t,” I hear.
And my whole self shakes as I realize that I’ve heard the voice of God.

Never so clearly as before.
Never.

And so I shove a whole lot of hopes in my backpack and I step out of faith.
I just wish it weren’t such a big damn step.