At the height of my advertising career, the view was, strangely, not one of awe.

I had just won three brand accounts from a blue chip client against one of the most lauded creative agencies, management was eating out of the palm of my hand, and I was enjoying life to the full.

Or so I thought.

Then came the cannonball moment, so named after the conversion experience of Saint Ignatius of Loyola after a cannonball crushed his legs.

My father was diagnosed with liver cancer and passed on three months later, while my mother died unexpectedly from a heart attack four months later while I was overseas.

Between the euphoria of career accomplishment and joie de vivre, and the dull ache of being orphaned in a space of four months, a voice cried out in the wilderness.

Life up until that point had its highs and lows, and had centred largely on educational achievements, career peaks and perks, a growing popularity among friends on the one hand, and estranged family relations, betrayal by those closest to me, and a deep restlessness on the other. God was nowhere to be found.

Like a glass of water that has been stirred and left to settle, I sought the same for my soul after my father’s passing, taking major time off to seek clarity, to re-examine priorities, to soak in silence and stillness … to find God.

I did find God and, in so doing, found myself.

Alone in a beautiful bungalow set amid bushland in suburban Sydney, my superficial and illusory desires receded while my deepest desires rose to the surface. Confronting the person I had become, I failed to recognise my reflection in the mirror.

While I did enjoy advertising, I discovered that the motivation behind the hard work wasn’t so much a love for the craft itself as an escape.

My parents had quarrelled all the way to the grave, and had estranged themselves to different degrees from the family. I had chosen to run away from the source of my pain, seeking solace in hard work. That I excelled in what I did brought the illusion that I was actually passionate about what I did.

I wasn’t.

There was a growing and gnawing doubt about what I did, and did so well. Was I, in fact, selling half-truths and cultivating false values that undermined self-esteem and self-worth?

Buy this product and you’ll be beautiful and loved. Live here and you’re a somebody. Ironically, these were the very things I struggled with.

In the quiet of my bushland bungalow, what was emerging from within me was the very antithesis of all that I had been promoting through advertising.

I desired a deep sense of self-worth rooted in a God who loves me unconditionally. I desired silence as the backdrop of prayer that was founded on having an intimate relationship with this God. I desired to serve God with my gifts in a way that brings life to others and to myself. I desired a loving community with whom I could praise and honour God.

But I did enjoy being creative. Was God asking me to give up advertising?

“He said to them, ‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.”  John 21:6

It would seem that at our cannonball moments, Jesus appears on the shores of our confusion to affirm us in our calling, yet at the same time challenge us to “cast our nets on the other side”.

That is, challenge us to do what we’ve been doing for so long, but to do it differently.

In the years since that cannonball moment, I discovered spiritual direction and retreats which brought a new level of intimacy in my relationship with God.

I discovered a spirituality in which God can be found in all things. So was God asking me to give up all my ideas and creativity? No. I found a voice prompting me to use all that … but channel it elsewhere, helping others access and find God in creative ways, to help lead them to their centre just as I found mine.

So I gave up advertising to pursue studies in spiritual direction. Today, I run a ministry that helps others find God in creative ways, through the arts and popular culture.

At the height of my advertising career, the view was, strangely, not one of awe. Having fallen to the ground, I find the view much more inviting.

From here, I can only look up, to the God whom I found amid all the chaos, at the height of my illusion.