Faith Words: Long time passing

We spent the weekend with our children and grandchildren in Austin.  Precious times!  Children (even grown ones) change so much when you don't see them regularly.  I'm glad we had the chance to be with them and talk and laugh and catch up a little.

After we left them, we drove to Dallas to check on my parents.  Mom's in the hospital and Dad's right there faithfully by her side every minute, holding her hand, comforting her the way only he can.  After nearly 69 years of marriage, it's hard to tell where one life stops and the other begins.  They're woven together in the tapestry that has been their life.

I miss my family.  I wish we lived closer together so we could see each other more often.  I'd probably drive my kids nuts, if we did.  But I miss them all so!

Life is not easy.  We rush through our youth trying to get all the pieces in place so we can really live.  Then, when we finally think we've got all the pieces just about in place, they start falling apart.  Someone moves. Someone dies.  A job changes.  Health changes.  The truth is that we're just fooling ourselves if we think we ever get it all together.  Only God does that and any pretext I have about my own ability to get it all together is just another lie I tell myself.

Sometimes it all makes me so sad and the sadness is palatable.  But sometimes I catch a glimpse of the beauty and joy God wants me to experience and it brushes that sadness away like a bad dream.

Do you ever feel that way?  I would have thought that by now in my life, I'd have figured out things so my life would always be just right, happy, peaceful. That doesn't seem to be my story.

So now, I'm trying to see life differently or maybe live it differently.  Instead of trying to make life storybook perfect, I want to learn to embrace it just like it is and let God write the storybook ending.  I want to face the good and bad times alike with His peace holding me together. What we go through here is very real but it's not always what I think it is.  And I certainly don't need to focus so intently on the flaws that the beauty of the tapestry that is my own life escapes me.  Instead of looking at the loose threads and missed stitches, I need to learn to see whole life design that God is weaving in and through me.

Learning to live,

Patrice

I Timothy 6:19b (NIV)

Take hold of the life that is truly life.