Passions at work

One of my pastors asked me to talk last Sunday about how God is using my passions. The time I spent reflecting on all my passions and how they've been used through the years was worthwhile. So the exercise was possibly far more helpful to me than to any of the listeners in the two worship services at which I spoke.

My passions have long been related to words, story, reading, writing and also to justice for the voiceless and the marginalized (and that includes women, who have been silenced for centuries). All of those loves came together in my journalism career—and they're still being used today in freelance writing, in my life coaching practice and in my part-time work as editor-at-large of Gather magazine.

The process of writing, whether it's for my daily coaching blogs or for a magazine article, is one of finding answers, gaining insights and real revelation. I like what priest and author Henri Nouwen said about it: "The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know. Thus, creative writing requires a real act of trust. We have to say to ourselves, 'I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust that it will emerge as I write.'"

Indeed, that is what happens. I learn so much in the process.

So what are your passions, your yearnings? How are they being used in your life? And what do you learn as you use them?