What did you loose this morning as you were getting ready to run out the door? Keys? Phone? Coffee cup? Maybe the baby strapped in the carrier? You ran back frantically searching under the sofa cushions (keys), the bathroom counter tops (coffee mug), and the upstairs landing (baby). Finding them all, heaved that sigh of relief. First gold star of the day: you have it together, babe. No fire in the kitchen, everyone is breathing, and you even remembered to put on your underwear.
These little lapses of memory, so easily correctible, are simply a matter of attention and focus. When life calms a little, like in 18 years when that last baby is sent off to college, you’ll have time to breathe again. But in the intervening years, what will you have lost to the chaos? Yourself? Connection with your spouse? Connection with your Lord?
When you stop running your relay race through time now and take assessment of your life, right at this moment, right as it stands, does what you’re doing now match with what you want to be doing? Let me rephrase that: is what you fill your time with more than what someone else expects of you? Does it make you a better person or make this world a better place? I ask this because recently I’ve been finding myself in an unlikely space– mostly lost – and I’m trying desperately to break free. I want my life to matter; I want your life to matter.
I struggle everyday against the disability that keeps me from working, and I’ve been blessed with finally getting TBI care through the VA. So, for me, there’s a flickering light of hope that someday I will actively matter. But seven years of inertia leaves its mark, and I often wonder at God’s purpose. Why am I here at this point in my life? Is that something you think about? Why here? Why now?
But, “why” is often left unanswered, and the best we are left with is simply, “Trust in Me.” So much harder than a, “Because…”, and, oh, so much scarier. What if this life I’ve lived never means anything to anyone?
I could post my resumé , and you might be impressed for about a second. The problem is that the of the sum of those accomplishments that made me the woman I am today, the woman typing this post, well, those activities and memberships and awards that meant so much when I was collecting them (and have no doubt, it was about collecting) have accumulated layers of dust. Do you guess my point? Those things that mattered so much – they were a lifetime, maybe two or three lifetimes, ago. Those accomplishments matter about as much today as the coffee grounds from yesterday morning. What am I doing now that justifies my consumption of oxygen and water?
There’s a beautiful Mercy Me song, “The Hurt and The Healer.” Often , I cry at the first bars of the music, and by the first lyrics I’m a mess. You know the song? Begging Mercy Me’s forgiveness, I’m going to quote the first few lines right now: “Why? The question that is never far away. The healing doesn’t come from the explained.” That truth resonates throughout my life – so many unanswered “Why”s. But even if I knew the answers, would it matter? My guess is “no,” and my bet is that even knowing the reasons – knowing His reasons – would potentially cause further damage, or even cataclysmic devastation. So, maybe in not knowing, maybe in my painful ignorance, I am truly blessed. So, even in this, He is truly Abba, a Father of Love, protecting me from truths I could not bear to withstand.
There are days I fear I have it all wrong, that He does not walk beside me or carry me as the old poem says, but when I manage to fight back the demons, and find my way back to the Light, I know that He is here, always here. How? Because he promises us that much: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jer 29:11. I (and you, for that matter) would not still be walking this planet if there were not something left for us to accomplish. Does that not inspire hope? Does that not inspire peace? Does that not inspire courage in the face of the torrent of adversity?
And, so, often I find myself singing along with my worn out track of Mercy Me, words lifted in prayer:
Breathe. Sometimes I feel it’s all that I can do,
Pain so deep that I can hardly move.
Just keep my eyes completely fixed on You.
Lord, take hold and pull me through.
So here I am,
What’s left of me,
Where glory meets my suffering.
Amen.
The Unexpected Life 