I used to get slightly angry when somebody called me a musician. I would answer very forcefully with this line;
“I am not a musician. I’m a writer!”
whereupon the unfortunate recipient of my fury always looked very hurt and said something akin to,
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you wrote.”

It seems that everyone knows I play music but nobody knows I write novels. There is a very simple reason for this. I play music on a stage in front of hundreds of people, appear in newspapers holding a fiddle, sing on radio stations, and have my name and vocal chords credited on three circulating albums. As for my writings, well, all seven-hundred pages are under lock and key, next to my eleven journals. Don’t you see why I am baffled that people call me a musician and not a writer?

But when some people learned their lesson and started calling me a writer, I found that this was not satisfactory either. Not because I wanted them to mention music, but because the truth of the matter is, I am both and I am neither. I now allow people to call me a musician. I do play music and sing a great deal and so I must own up to the fact.

While I may play it, write it, perform it, spend many of my waking hours with it, it is not what I live for nor even what I dream about, and, believe it or not, I really do not spend much of my time talking about it. I play music because I am supposed to play music; it is beautiful and God uses it to touch and change people. Does this make sense? I don’t desire to be known as a performer, but if I must, so be it. I will relish this season of life until God sends me another one.

Do I have dreams and aspirations? Sure, but they have little to do with fame and glory. I dream mostly of a husband and children and dishes and picnics in the yard and road trips together and reading my babies stories at night. Oh, and on the side, I might play lullabies on my fiddle or sing sea shanties while I cook. Maybe dance to blues with my five-year-old. I know I’ll write. I always write.

I can reach out to others the strongest when I reach from the core of love that we have with each other, and that’s where my priorites lie right here, right now, and always should. Because it’s not about me; it’s about Yashua, and it’s about who I can bless with what he has given me. Any earthly ambition that takes precident over my present family– or my future family– is a stale and an empty one that is destined to fail.