One Step

The LORD makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand.

—Psalm 37:23–24

Sometimes I meet women who are so passionate they’re about to jump out of their skin. They want to get their hands dirty and dive neck deep into something that keeps them up at night. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to move forward, so they’re vibrating with pent-up passion turning rapidly to frustration.

So I tell them the story of my mom. When my mom was my age, she was a stay-at-home mom. She wasn’t yet an oil painter or a potter or an AIDS activist or an expert on peacekeeping. My mom began in her forties. She is thoroughly alive in her sixties. If you’re just now discovering your passions and gifts in your thirties, or forties, or seventies, there is still time. The path doesn’t have to be a straight line, and often it only makes sense when you look back at it. It doesn’t have to be full-time, or all-or-nothing, or all-at-once. I tell them what my mom tells me—that you just have to take one step, and that when you do, the next one will appear.

There’s still time, I tell them and I tell myself. There’s still time.