Living

On my three hour trek to school the other day I found myself thinking.  That is one thing I truly enjoy about the commute!  I was thinking about why I have been struggling so much lately.  I don't look like I am struggling (at least I thought so), but I feel it.  I feel regret over rushing my kids, or not savoring every single moment I could.  I feel anxiety over them growing so fast and worrying whether they understand how much I love them.  I worry about my daughter going to school and bullies.  I worry about selling our house, and if we do sell our house.  I worry about serving God and helping people, and what if I cause someone else to fall on their journey.  I focus on how to get through.... I push forward and so often I find myself thinking I only have to get through the next month....three months....week.  

Then I stopped.  

God has given me a precious gift.  God died and over came death not so that I could "get through" but so that I may LIVE.  I need to live in the moment.  To truly stop and breath and experience the now.  Enjoy my morning stretch, take my son's screaming fit as a time to practice meditative breathing, to notice the world around me waking up.  God died for me so that I may Live.  Live now and here and be.  God did not die so that I could live in heaven alone, but so that I could live here on Earth.  So I could experience God's fingerprints in everything around me and notice them. God came for me.  Not to get me through, not to push me through this life, but give me a chance to see it with new eyes each morning and a new heart full of promise each evening, if I allow it.

Yet I find myself a million times a day slipping into my conventional thinking, trying to escape the here and now because it can be overwhelming, frightening and unpredictable.  I guess that is why God gives us those moments of clarity.  That way we can think back to them and refocus ourselves, and work on training our brains to let God in and stop getting through.