Seems like it all happens at once…

Changing seasons, starting over, watching the people you love go through heartaches… life just happens all at once.

My pattern was to hide… to not feel the things… to find ways to escape from it all instead of facing it head on.

I wonder how much I missed out because of living like that?

What lessons did I miss? What healing could have happened? What positive relationships could have been?

Doesn’t make sense to live in the past… I’m learning how to not do that anymore.

And, it’s not just the past. When we look too much toward the future, we end up anxious, worrisome, obsessive… planning things that can’t be guaranteed because we don’t know how the world will change between now and then. Or, how WE will change…

“Blueprints for the future are a fool’s errand.”
- Ron Swanson

I’m learning what it means to live in the present. To just take a step.

What matters is what we do now. Today.

Wish I had…trusted that… before losing so much…but, gratitude overcomes regret.

I’m thankful for the things I’ve learned, for what I’ve gotten to experience, that I can look up and see the people who are still around…that have stuck by… that bad situations didn’t end up worse, that pain heals, that “goodbyes” in Christ is never permanent.

I’m thankful for the Lord… His mercy and grace in my life… that He’d be willing to save someone even as wretched as me. That He makes me part of His family, that He’s faithful and good despite the fact that I’m not always.

And, that He plans good things for His kids.

There’s peace here… in the present. Even though it hurts a little still. I can, for now at least, rest my head.

If given tomorrow, I’ll go out into that fray and fight the good fight.

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
– Lamentations 1:21-23