"Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent."

I ask them instead to help each other see how limitations and liabilities are the flip side of our gifts, how a particular weakness is the inevitable trade-off for a particular strength.

As often happens on the spiritual journey, we have arrived at the heart of a paradox: each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens up. All we need to do is stop pounding on the door that just closed, turn around-which puts the door behind us-and welcome the largeness of life that now lies open to our souls. The door that closed kept its fro

expectations held by people who are not trying to discern our selfhood but to fit us into slots.

"the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need"3

there is as much guidance in way that closes behind us as there is in way that opens ahead of us.

Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling the who I am. I

I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about-quite apart from what I would like it to be about-or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.

I had started to understand that it is indeed possible to live a life other than one's own. Fearful