Listen

This week, a dear friend shared the story about how two separate conversations have shaped who she has become. Maybe even defined her as the woman she is today. I know her well and give thanks to the people who spoke those words to her.

They helped create an inspiring human being.

The catalyst in this telling story; my friend listened. She saw a path, deemed it correct, and then stepped forward. She acted with determination and passion.

We should all follow her lead.

Too often we discount those life-markers. Or maybe don’t even notice them. Did we miss out? Fail to step up? What if something else caught our attention at that crucial moment? Who knows…who knows?

Two times in my life, a frail moment has changed the course of what has happened to me and who I have become. I call them frail because they could have slipped by so easily. But didn’t. Instead, everything changed. Changed where I stood, changed where I faced, changed where I stepped. Both times the message came in a song.

One happened two years and two days ago. The other, with consequences far more reaching, was in 2002. Bruce Guthro told me he had joined a Scottish rock band and gave me a copy of this new music. The next day, I sat staring at the stereo as the first notes played the beginning of Runrig’s “Book of Golden Stories.” My heart heard the sound and recognized a beat it had not followed before. Nothing has been the same since.

And there started my quest to discover “why.” Each time I listened to Bruce and Runrig it seemed they were sending a map of where I should look. The path led me all the way to Aberdeen, Scotland. It led me home. A home I didn’t even know existed.

Everything in my life that relates to my Scottish roots can be traced back to Bruce handing me that CD.

And all because I listened, really listened, to a few notes in a song. And then listened to my heart.

As for my friend, her life has changed because she listened to a few words in a crowd.

Has destiny ever met up with you? Did it come with a whisper from a mysterious man you would never see again? Or like me, was it carried in on the melody and lyrics of a song… or would it only take the first strummed notes of a guitar. Has a truth ever caught you by surprise?

And more important…did you listen?

the CD that changed it all