Long road to get here...

I’m accustomed to striving.  Have this, get that, be there…. You know, it’s all over social media- things we should be doing, wearing, places we should be going...  Now, I just want to stop.  Stop, enjoy, and savor moments.  Cheer the triumphs of my people, and those God places in my path while continuing to cultivate my spirit and its incessant yearning for what’s real, and what’s important.  

I’ve led the other life.  Always going, surging, doing.  It left me empty.  It was tiring.  As I was in church yesterday, with my husband, youngest daughter, and grandchildren.  As we stood up and worshiped the God that has blessed my family so abundantly, I choked up with His goodness and how faithful He is.  Even when I wasn’t so faithful.  Even when I went through my traumas and pain, He was there, waiting.  Lightly knocking on my door, as my life’s chaos distracted me from hearing it.  He waited patiently. 

Now, my door is wide open.  Open to His way, His love that envelops me and lifts me.  A kind of love that transcends understanding.  God blessed me with two amazing daughters and one dang near perfect son-in-law.  I know that love, the kind of love that would sacrifice everything and anything for their well-being.  Jesus did that.  For this whole world.  It’s inconceivable, right?  For you, for me, for those people that test us, He was sacrificed for all of us, so we would live with Him and our Heavenly Father in heaven for eternity.  Eternity..  Hard to conceptualize as we’re spending day by day here in this fallen world.

As I consider this, time, and my future, I think of Ecclesiastes 1 1:11:

The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:

2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”    says the Teacher.“Utterly meaningless!    Everything is meaningless.”

3 What do people gain from all their labors    at which they toil under the sun?

4 Generations come and generations go,    but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets,    and hurries back to where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south    and turns to the north;round and round it goes,    ever returning on its course.

7 All streams flow into the sea,    yet the sea is never full.To the place the streams come from,    there they return again.

8 All things are wearisome,    more than one can say.The eye never has enough of seeing,    nor the ear its fill of hearing.

9 What has been will be again,    what has been done will be done again;    there is nothing new under the sun.

10 Is there anything of which one can say,    “Look! This is something new”?It was here already, long ago;    it was here before our time.

11 No one remembers the former generations,    and even those yet to comewill not be remembered    by those who follow them.

What does this mean to you?  To me, it means that it’s all just stuff.  This. This life is just a moment in time.  Eternity is just that, eternity.  Like five-ever!  It doesn’t mean to be wasteful at all.  It means to be purposeful.  Live with integrity.  Live life well.  If you’re raising a family, do it well.  If you’re working, do it well, all for the glory of God who sacrificed so you could live with Him for eternity.  In the time you have here, leave your legacy.

I am a nostalgic person, who loves biographies.  Seeing pictures of people in their “hey-day”, seeing pictures of myself, of my children and remembering that moment, and thinking how I wish I could hug young me, or hold my children once again.  It makes me realize that time is ticking, regardless of circumstances, it’s ticking.  It’s up to me to make my lasting impact on the hearts of those God entrusted me with.  

This past Sunday, this momma felt every bit of His love and was, yet again, humbled by the abundance of His grace. After all my striving and getting, I finally realized that all I ever had to do was look up, and the pieces of my life were placed back together by the hands that made them.  So this life, however long, or short it is for me, will be rife with beauty, hurt, all the things that life presents, but my eternity—well, that will be glorious!  

How do you feel?  Are you in the throes of life and wanting calmer waters?  Can you even comprehend what that would look like?  Take it from me; the water is much nicer on the other side.