Framed

Some days, I can get myself in a twisted up mess thinking too long and hard about important moments in the past, and too long and hard about the uncertain moments in the future.

It makes my stomach hurt.

Then, something will happen, or someone will make me laugh...today.

For the last couple days, I've fought diligently against the vicious cycle in my mind between trying to understand the importance of my past and the uncertainty of my future.

Today, finally, I laughed and I told my story, and I lived and prayed, and trusted. Finally, the knot in my stomach melted when it got through to the deepest part of me and I looked up and said, "I can't do it, please help". I felt like the little sister whose bigger sister and brother were always keeping an eye out and wrapping their arms around her. Like the biggest sister whose mom and dad loved her and would always be praying for her and not let her fall too hard while she learned. I remembered what it felt like to believe that everything will ALWAYS work out right. Like a little child, I remembered how it felt, and I wanted to cry deep inside remembering because I feared I would never feel that way again.

I don't believe that everything always works out right automatically. I believe we take way too much for granted and that we think we are our own saviors. I think we misplace our hopes all the time and we can get lost and confused along the way, and we forget that today, we still live and breath and we are still choosing how we will live, what we will believe and what we will do with the rest of our lives. I don't believe that we are ever done until we are done...done. What are we hoping to achieve? When we think we are done, the sun rises yet another day and it is today again. Then we must live it, choose it, be in it fully.

Dear God, I'm longing to climb up on Your shoulders and get Your perspective and learn Your ways! Give me the tour of this life. Help me to see what I can't see. Open the eyes of my understanding.