This is the good stuff…
In my heart, I carry some memories like snapshots in a battered-up album. These are moments of sheer perfection. There’s one of Allie, about 5 years old. She’s wearing denim overalls, a giant backpack, and high-top sneakers as she waits for the yellow school bus to pick her up. There’s one of Brian in a maroon and blue paisley shirt, laughing as he swings with his head thrown back, his cheeks pink from the cold. There’s a perfect moment of Steph, as she showed up for her sister’s middle school play dressed in her softball uniform, dirty smears, and a crooked ponytail. I could go on and on.
In this season of my life, it is easy to look back and recognize the preciousness of that season. Hindsight brings its own golden glow to life. It is harder, to recognize it while you are living it. As someone who spends too much time leaning forward, it is good for me to pull back and pay attention to what is happening right now.
My faith teaches me to make the most of every moment, to look for opportunities to bless and encourage those within my reach. I take those lessons seriously. Sometimes, I think I take it all too seriously. I spend so much time looking for “what I am supposed to be doing” that I neglect the beauty of this moment and this time.
Over the past few years, we welcomed adult children back into our home. This arrangement caused us to sacrifice other priorities we also count as precious. For the duration of that living arrangement, our focus was limited to our family. Inviting friends over, hosting dinners, or small groups was difficult at best. As I let go of these familiar things that have shaped our lives for decades, I worried that this season was getting in the way of what I am “meant” to do.
What I learned over that time, however, was that this season of proximity to my children was in itself a gift. To love and grow together in this new way was challenging and important. We all benefitted from our extra time. The flow of days that brought them home, the ways we lived and loved each other, and their movement forward from that time are all precious and good.
Maybe the most important thing I took from that season was a new awareness that my purpose doesn’t lie out there somewhere, but right here in the ordinary cadence of my days. Who am I to love and serve? Let me see, who I can see from here? If God organizes my days, then the who and what of my life today should help me find my purpose. It is enough.
What if the great purpose of my life is to love well, wherever I find myself. In the daily-ness of raising kids, the ebb and flow of church life, or the one who sits across the breakfast table I can choose to love well. There are beautiful, perfect, fleeting moments in every season of life. Ten years from now, life will be very different. Of this, I am sure. When I look back at this season, I am certain I will recognize the beauty and wonder of these days. The trick, I think is to begin to notice it while I’m still living it. This, my friend, is
