I heard these words tonight, “nothing is lost forever…in this world there
is a kind of painful progress longing for what we have left behind and dreaming
of what is ahead”. After hearing these words I had a vision of myself
struggling to get back to the life I once had, clawing at open space trying to
return to the un-returnable. And I wondered how do we learn to live in the
moment? How do we live in a time and space where we are not desperately trying
to alter our circumstances to what we once had or what we think our future
should hold? How do we learn to embrace all that we are given today? It is a
fatal flaw that each of us posses. Trying so desperately to return to what we
had in the past, trying to re-create what was once amazing to us. And the rest
of the time we dream of what will be, what we want to be. And I wonder if this
is where peace is lost? I have endured some of the most atrocious scenarios
that my brain could have conjured when I was planning my life. None of these
things were apart of my plan. I don’t have the answer to these questions. Yet
in a moment the answer to my prayer for peace and joy in my life was answered
in the last three minutes of a movie. Joy is today, in Evelyn’s face and honest
brown eyes. Joy is in Joshua’s belly laugh and putting his pants on his head to
play peek-a-boo. Joy is hearing Ryan talk about how much he loved his night
time hot tub with papa. Joy is looking up at the Rocky Mountains and being
surrounded by God’s glory. Joy is putting my arms around my husband’s chest and
smelling him and feeling his strength and love. Joy is today.
When we cling to the past and fight change we lose the
ability to see what is right in front of our face, we can not see the beautiful
mess that God has given us to live in. We claw and we fight for what we think
we want, what we believe is best for us but in doing so we lose the joy of living
in right now and right here. Dear Lord please guide my daily steps so that my
sadness about losing Christian does not take my focus away from today. God
grant me supernatural senses so that each moment with my children is magnified
and the glory of my days is too bright to ignore. I pray for peace about the
future knowing it is in your hands. And I pray for peace about my past knowing
that was also in your hands. Dear Lord please show me how I can find joy with
Christian today, I do not want to claw for him…I don’t want to beg for a
different future. I simply want to sink into today with delight and peace.