Standing on the Edge

“The Spirit’s call was as intense as the fear, and I realized that in facing my fear, and trusting in the source of all life, I would indeed honor life,” says Lois. In late 1997, she became a nurse. That began her odyssey into fundamental questions on how to live her life, and a scary journey of self-reckoning that would shape her next two decades.

The question that would guide that journey: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Lois’s midlife journey would be exactly that  —  wild and precious, she now laughs in reflection. Today, she defines her second act as “She Who Listened,” in contrast to her previous outlook on life, “She Who Is Much Afraid.”

After returning from her Mexican vacation epiphany in 1983, Lois knew she needed to start reinventing her life. But she concedes she dipped her toes in slowly. She continued to work on herself and on her marriage, joined Al-Anon to help cope with and understand her husband’s alcohol addiction, entered a chaplaincy program and pastoral studies master’s and, while raising her kids, went to school and pondered her next steps. “I don’t think any of this affected my kids because I still did everything and I studied quietly in my bedroom,” recalls Lois.