Dear Daughter,

There's so much I want to say, want you to know that you know, want you to experience and discover. There are so many stories I want to share, but how can I do that when I am hungry and so want a cup of coffee since every medicine ball I ordered while I was away was horrendous. Forgive the complaint among other things.

One of the things I want you to know is that complaints are best surrendered to Jesus so He can turn it into prayer. At the conference I attended, we got a chance to polish our listening ears when the session leader paired us up and invited us to listen for God's voice about the first thing that caught our attention about our partner's attire. It was quite amazing how, if we surrendered our eyes we could hear something divine and once shared, bless another. So among my promises to you are those about growing in my stewardship to better listen to you and attend to our physical and spiritual needs. To that end, allow me to share a few items I want to develop not to far down the road.

1. We were meant to do more here on earth than survive.

I was blessed to receive a signed copy of a new friend's book Saturday. I scrolled down the table of contents and turned immediately to the back where she listed 15 actions one can take to recover from divorce. My hope is that she left it there to whet her readers' appetites for her next volume on the topic. If not, she inspired me to consider making such a list for you about thriving at every age and stage God grants you. As I type those words pangs of regret threaten to stall this undertaking at the start. So here goes something, at which writing my bowels start to foreground themselves - always an indication that I'm onto something or vice versa. What did I think after all, when interrupting the writing to get a cup of coffee! At least, that's the effect I have always delightfully depended upon since I began drinking it, albeit extremely late in life. Innywho, here goes something! And perhaps, just maybe, this is how the series unfolds. What I write one day becomes the read aloud the next!

2. Begin by cherishing your voice - after initiating the skill through good stewardship of the body.

For all the writers out there, this is how thinking with the hand works, as Leuchtthurm and Julia Cameron inspire us to do. There's God-sized genius inside every one of us, not contained but flowing and ready to be uncorked. Made in Their image and likeness, we have the mind of Christ at our disposal for solution-finding in every area of human endeavor starting with our very own lives.

3. Answer the question Mary Oliver asks in Summer's Day: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your wild and precious life? http://phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_thesummerday.html And don't for an instant believe you can't answer it differently over time even in the same hour. I've had wonderful fun discovering who I am (and who I am not) through the years. Lucille's, what the mirror said, was kept on my mirror in college. There was no mister with his hands on me, but I had high hopes! And it was useful to remember so I didn't end up the girlfriend living in the closet next door with her boyfriend or worse. I want deep and abiding love for you. Here, the waterworks begin. If I have failed you by not having held onto a daddy for you, I repent. I've done my level best. Stuff happens and I am still figuring out this thing called life and practicing how to hold lightly the things I hold dear so that I can reach for the things God would have me receive.

So many of my cherished truths have been justification, excuse, self-delusion, that other than what God has revealed of Themselves lo, these many blinks of an eye, I can't say what I truly know for sure. This is why it's imperative to inter-view friends and accomplices before committing a season or a lifetime to anyone.

4. Keep only good friends. The last item reminded me of Oprah Winfrey. She's got such a generous approach to life. She shares the stories of how she learned what she believes in a volume and in episodes of her programs related to What I Know For Sure. In her latest subscription community which I joined this past summer, she sent every one of us a copy of the collected wisdom of her years so far. I want you to have an even wider margin for joy and celebration in your life an even greater generosity of spirit, and closer embodiment of friendship than hers with Gail is even humanly possible.

I go to post my word count on Facebook and find a photo I took nine years ago. Barak Obama was in Vegas and I got close enough to him to snap a pea-sized photo of him. He ran for the office of the President on a platform of hope. Years before he did, I'd attended an Educational Change workshop with Russ Vernon-Jones inviting us to identify the thing we could do that would shift the weight of our lives toward a more desireable world. My memory. My words. It was a transformative moment. I knew instinctively, that hoping out loud, yes, wearing hope on my sleeve, not just on my heart, would change my life and hopefully, lives around me. I used "Dare to hope out loud" as my email signature; the salvo on my voicemail greeting, the note field on my checks - something that won't likely even exist by the time you are able to read this for yourself, and doing so continues to make a difference in me and in the world. After all, here you are. And I believe you are a direct result of that unrecognized prayer along with so many other events that have transpired in the intervening years. Continue to hope out loud. Make friends out of enemies. Fear only dying with your gifts in your hands and love the Lord Our God as unconditionally as He loves us for whom He gave His only begotten son.

I hear the bedroom door open.

Good morning!