The cycle of LIFE...

A friend of mine recently asked why I have not been blogging. And while I grappled for a good answer to give her, and came up with some pretty valid excuses that included things like busyness, and graduations, and work and such....the truth is, there is more to it than a neat little answer could explain.  I'm not sure I am ready to go into it all...actually, I'm not sure I even understand it myself.  Because, while all of the answers above are true and valid...it is deeper than all of that, and I'm not sure that anyone on the other side of this screen would really care to "go there"! 

Some days I sit here to write, and realize that what I have to say doesn't sound poetic or funny or entertaining at all.  Its sounds more like questioning and wrestling and a bunch of other words that sound more like struggle than anything else.  So I don't write...mostly because I don't want the questions and wrestling to come out sounding like things are in upheaval or out of control.  And I don't write because so much of it is deeply personal and just needs to be worked out between me and God.

But the thing is this, there's a lot of LIFE happening around here.  Because LIFE doesn't stop for you to ask questions and wait for answers.  You just have to keep going, because if you don't, you will have missed something of significance and never have the chance again.  

THIS is some of what LIFE has been doing around here lately:

This one has moved out 

{here he is, enjoying his last morning at HOME}

and his new bachelor pad home

and again, on his first grocery trip

She continues to grow

and chew...

and eat...

They goof off

He has graduated

{mmmhmmm...}

She has finished her first year of high school...

scored her first job, opened a checking account...

...and reminds me often that she will soon be old enough to drive.

There are deep questions being asked inside me...questions I rarely voice audibly, but have been there for many years.  Not questions of Faith or of Trust...just questions with unseen answers.  The questions lie dormant for clusters of days.  Inevitably, they return without warning, as was the case this morning.

Who knew that reading about Adam and Eve would put to orbit
 those nagging questions that cycle around me?
But, it started with reading a few words,
and ended with my journaling a few more words that looked something like this:


"Somewhere along the line, perfection just wasn't enough...because there was this tree that was off limits...and Eve didn't like that there was something she was not allowed to have.  How like us.  She had it all...and "all" was just not enough when she realized that there was actually more to have.  And so she gave in to her ingratitude and her longing for more...she took what was not hers and sin entered the lives of all of us.  Forever.


...SO we labor and we sweat, we have conflict, we battle with discontentment.  We wish for what we don't have, and are ungrateful for what we do.
  And life is hard...not at all the way it was created to be.  But we did it to ourselves.  And if not Adam and Eve, then it would have been someone else.  It would have been me.  Because I am just like Eve in so many ways. Having been blessed with much, I still want more.  Not in tangible things...in stuff...but in life.  I don't want ONLY what I have...I want what I have, plus more.  Not LESS than what I have...just added-to.  


And the cycle of Eve continues through me.  Unless I learn from her failures and live with gratitude in the here and now.  Because if I look at tomorrow...it's not enough.  If I look even farther...my heart panics."


There you have it...just a little bit of the ugly truth that battles inside of me.  The nagging questions of -how life got to be this way...why do I find myself still walking through life single...how is all of this wonderful life that is mine STILL not enough?  

Funny thing is, just thinking and wondering about these same questions hasn't changed or resolved ANYthing.  The questions still remain, just like they did the last time I asked them.  So I'll do the same thing I did when I discovered the same thing the last time I asked the same thing {smile}....I will resolve to stop asking today.  And I will resolve to just keep walking forward.  And I'll read and reread what I have already penned in permanent ink:

"And today...the only words that whisper Hope my way are these: 

"Be Still...know that I AM GOD."

No definitive answer.

No resolution.

Just a whisper of knowing...that He gets it....and He is still God.  

And apparently that is all I need to know."

{* Note to my friend who dared to ask why I am not blogging....sorry, YOU asked me!}

Resolve...and living

These next months are before me 

and in the back of my mind always...

They are a tribute to the fact that life is an endless cycle.

We birth,

we nurture,

we teach,

we empower,

we push forward...

and eventually {all too soon} we release completely.

While these thoughts provoke ache in a mother's heart,

they are reality.

They do not wait until we are ready...

because, truly..

when

would we be ready?

Move forward,

that is what we do...

with steps more deliberate 

and 

eyes open a bit wider.

I don't want to miss this moment...

all too soon it will be gone, too.

And it still surprises me when I see him walk in front of me 

in seemingly slow motion..

my eye, like a lens, capturing the sight of him in slow motion...

stashed away, 

filed for a later day when the sight of him is needed.

There is temptation to let the melancholy seep in

to give in to the lure of discontentment.

But such is not for me

it is not for me to wish away today

for the fear of what comes tomorrow.

It is mine to live today

  freely

fully

with contentment

and joy

Resolved to be present...

There are three children in this house today...

not one who has enlisted allegiance to his future...

There are three...

and they are counting on my presence to show up to live today.

"Don't lose your grip on Love and Loyalty. 
   Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart.
Earn a reputation for living well 
   in God's eyes and the eyes of the people. 

  Trust God from the bottom of your heart; 
   don't try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; 

   he's the one who will keep you on track."

Prov. 3

learning lessons....

I was pretty teary yesterday morning.  Even though I fully expected my grandmother's death, and even wished it for her-because she was so ready and it had become just a matter of waiting....but even then, I couldn't help but get all leaky all morning long!  My mom, sister and I went to the Home to clean out her room.  

Throughout the last few years she has widdled down her possessions to next to nothing...what she kept ended up in my parents basement.  But at 93 there's not a whole lot that you need.  Someone else feeds you, clothes you, changes your sheets and escorts you everywhere you want to go.  Your needs are pretty meager.

And that's what I've been thinking about the last day and a half.  I'm thinking about how many hours, weeks, months and years we spend in our lifetime just trying to reach some level of importance.  Whether it is financial, vocational or in relationships, we're always reaching for something more.  And yet, at the end of our lives we ALL end up on the same playing ground.  We die...and our stuff is distributed to someone else.

In my grandmother's case, we packed up two garbage bags of clothing for Goodwill and three boxes of her belongings.  That's it.  She didn't live a life in pursuit of things...her desires were mostly relational....not "stuff-related". 

 Imagine that she HAD lived her life in pursuit of the next best thing life had to offer.  Imagine that her home was filled with toys and gadgets, blings and baubles.  

What would yesterday have looked like???

I venture to say it would look EXACTLY like it did.  We would have needed more garbage bags, a bigger uhaul for Goodwill, and a few more boxes of stuff to distribute.  But, we would have been doing exactly the same thing, which is my point.  No matter what we pursue in life, at the end of it all we take with us is our reputations and our legacies. 

 WE CAN'T PACK ANYTHING ELSE UP IN AN OVERNIGHT BAG AND TAKE IT WITH US!

So, we have two choices to make:

1) Live a life in pursuit of temporary happiness, accumulating all that our houses can fill.  Busy ourselves with the fullness of all the world has to offer...

OR

2) Live a life in pursuit of eternal happiness, love on the people around us, deny our own selfish gain...and just live simply.

At the end of my life, when my children are tidying up my belongings, distributing them amongst themselves, I hope it takes about an hour.  I hope that they find boxes and boxes of pictures filled with memories of TIME spent together.  I hope they look back on my life and see that I've loved people more than STUFF.  I hope they find a legacy that they want to pass on to their own children.

I take note here because I need a reminder.  I need to refresh the screen often and remind myself to stay on track.  I have a lot of work to do...a lot of "house" to clean.  

This will take a LOT of effort, people! 

 It won't happen by accident...

An intentional life happens only when we make it happen.

Almost {Word-less Wednesday} LIFE

LIFE..." I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly...." John 10:10

                                    "I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born."