something about the chase...

For me there is something insanely poetic about late afternoon runs during the last few days of autumn. The way the golden rays of the sun peak through buildings illuminating the newly naked trees and glimmer off the rare blue calmness of lake Michigan makes my heart flutter. Ahh, it's almost magic and easy to miss it if you're not anxiously awaiting it's arrival.

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This magic has the power to light the fire back in the hearts of those that have allowed it to dwindled down to a faint flicker with the change of seasons. For me, I wait for this time of year for that exact reason. Strangely the brisk chill in the air always brings me deep inspiration and reminders of why I pound the pavement day after day, dream after dream.

In recent months running has been feeling like a job for me, focused and dull. But it's not, rather it has always been my quiet me time where I unplug from the universe and disappear off of the map for a few brief moments in time each day. Time for me to reflect, pray, and dream. Somehow this fall I turned into my own drill sergeant, and my movements became robotically uninspired making all euphoric feelings from my dreams null. Passion and optimism no longer stoked the fire for my future, instead they doused the flames with rancid water extinguishing any hope for the actualization of my sought after glory.

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Knowing that the unwelcome feelings of lull lingering around this neck of the woods would eventually clear out to make way for new opportunities has been my motivation to quickly close out the old day and begin a new. Anxiety about the return of my inspiration has left me frantically searching the oddest of places for it's return has been ever consuming. Funny thing is, that which our heart is most insistent about finding will always be the one thing that we will never stumble upon...until we stop looking.

A gentle reminder recently that faith, (whether it be in your God, future, or even yourself) is grown in risk rather then in safety have quietly left necessary imprints on my heart. As someone who continually concerns themselves with progress and the actualization of my goals and what my heart desires occasionally needs an unplanned intervention of words from a soul wiser then my own that has the power to shake me to my core when it tickles me at the right moment.

I was tickled.

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My dreams are just a blue print for where life is really leading me, and lately those dreams have not lead anywhere near expected. Instead they jerk me around like a puppet and assure me that there will always be a risk in the things which God intends to bless me with. The penciled out rough draft of life which I tuck away in my back pocket will always be with me as I chase down life, but my heart is open to what this city is trying to teach.

I think it's time that I start carrying an eraser in the other pocket.