Following Your Bliss

At some point when I was growing up, I either read about, or heard a sermon about, “Following Your Bliss.” I didn’t realize what this meant at the time, and it has taken a lifetime (at least, to-date) to understand, at least partially, what bliss really is.

When I was twenty, I was in love, and believed that my bliss resided in my new husband, who was a coach and teacher in a small north Georgia town. Bliss, to me at the time, was being married, looking forward to having a family one day, and being a part of the small community where we began our marriage. I didn’t look farther than the city limits of the little town, and I believed that my life would be one of living happily ever after.

It wasn’t long until life changed drastically for me, and for the next twenty-odd years I didn’t follow my bliss, but that of my husband. I followed him through four years in the Coast Guard, two graduate degrees, one of which was a theology degree, and in and out of seven parsonages and as many churches. During that time we had two sons, who tagged along with us everywhere we went, sometimes willingly, and sometimes not so enthusiastically. The years drifted by as I watched my husband follow his calling into ministry, supported him as he ministered to one congregation and then moved to the next, and did my best to be a good wife and mother.

During this time, I earned my bachelor’s degree in elementary education, not because I wanted to become a teacher, but because my husband thought that it was a good profession for a minister’s wife. I was a good teacher, but it definitely wasn’t my bliss, and after five years, I said goodbye to the public school system for good, knowing that it was not where I wanted to spend the rest of my working life.

When I applied for, and was offered, the position of a public library branch librarian, I felt a twinge of what bliss might be. I was happy in the library, and looked forward to going to work every day. The pay was lousy, though, and I was told that if I wanted to move up in the system, I would need to get my master’s degree in library science. The seed was planted, and I began to investigate some way to accomplish this goal, while at the time didn’t have a clue as to how it could be done. There were no library schools anywhere near our church, and when we moved to a new appointment the next June and I said farewell to yet another job, it still seemed like an insurmountable dream.

Even though becoming a librarian was definitely part of what bliss meant to me, it turned my life upside down for a few years in what I would consider to be the opposite of bliss. My marriage ended over my desire to become a librarian and have a career of my own. I also realized during that time that I really wasn’t a very good minister’s wife, at least not the one my husband wanted me to be. His bliss and mine came to a crossroads, and each of us insisted on following our individual bliss, which appeared to be going in opposite directions.

I became a librarian, which led to a wonderful job that included conference planning and association management. I was happy in my work, and fulfilled in my accomplishments, but still wondered why my life didn’t feel blissful. It even led to a dream come true for me: creating, developing, and managing a virtual library. I remembered that while I was in library school, I told my academic advisor that my dream was to build a library from the ground up. This is exactly what I did, although the “ground” was in cyberspace!

The financial crash of 2009 hit, and one of the victims was my job. My precious online library was suddenly part of my past, and I didn’t have a clue what the future had in store for me. My wonderful husband celebrated the loss of my job instead of encouraging me to feel sorry for myself, even though we weren’t sure how we were going to make it financially without my steady income. We hitched our wagon to God’s constant star, and knew that He would somehow guide us in the direction of bliss, whatever and wherever it might be.

In the past two years, I’ve finally discovered my bliss. My bliss is out in the garden during the spring and summer as we plant, nurture, and harvest. It is in the blue skies of an autumn afternoon and in the lightning strikes of a summer storm. It is in the wagging tails of my dogs and in the purrs of my cats. It is in the voices of my sons when they call me on the phone. It is in my husband’s smile, as he admires my kitchen counter full of fresh vegetables, drying herbs, and freshly canned jellies and preserves. It is the feeling I have when I write, watching my thoughts find their way into print. It is in the way my heart wells up and tears fill my eyes as I am overwhelmed with the blessings in my life.

Life brings struggles, disappointments, sadness and pain. We are not guaranteed an idyllic life with nothing but happiness and well-being. But I truly believe that when we listen to the voice of God in our lives, when we seek the divine in the everyday, and when we open our hearts to whatever comes our way, that is where we find our bliss.

And I’ve discovered that I don’t need to follow my bliss. Instead of being out in front of me, it walks beside me, and holds my hand.