The site is asking me, if I were writing my autobiography, what my opening sentence would be. Hm. Probably, “How did I get here?” Or maybe, “Where am I?”

I’ll turn 50 this year, in a few months, and with more years behind me than ahead, and can look back at the twists and turns and false starts and the forks in all of the roads. I’m not sure any of them make sense, by themselves, but looking around, there does seem to be a certain wisdom – NOT in my choices or planning (my participation looks more like a confused fumbling in the dark) but by a gentle hand that led with a looong leash that allowed me more freedom than I deserved, the freedom to hurt people (myself more than any others), the freedom to do the worst of all possibilities.

I made tons of terrific decisions for the wrong reasons. How? Or Why? Who knows? Not me, I don’t know, but I believe there’s One who does know, and it was His gentle hand in mine, His arms that held me in my broken-ness, His whisper in my ear, that brought me to this site prompt, today.

So, where am I? Here. And I think I got here by following what small flicker of Light I could see or feel. In my youth, I tried and tried to block that Light, to cover It up, to run away from It. But It could not be extinguished. It lit the way for 20+ years, through school, college, then to The Angel, and thankfully, I was smart (or lucky) enough to hold on tightly to her, then these 2 boys, then a faith community so deep and loving, then then then.

I guess how I got here is grace. That’s simple enough. And absolutely True. Just grace. Undeserved favor. (Which we all have, by the way. We all are loved beyond reason or limit. There is not now, and has never been, anything special about me, in that department.)

So, yes, “How did I get here?’ This is pretty fun, because I know that the Here I am today isn’t the Here I will stay. The story will change and morph, I’m nowhere close to a finished product. I guess, now that I’m thinking about it, the biography isn’t really mine at all.