being present

 

What a busy week.   Sometimes it seems like all the commitments we've made all meet up in the same slot of time, vying for our attention and mental energy.  

That was last week.  

I found myself just getting through one day at a time.  Not in a bad way, just a very thought-out way, from one task to the next, to the next.  
I don't like living like that.  
Feels too bound up, 
too aligned, 
too prepared.  

We don't have much planned for the Christmas weekend.  And we like it just like that. Making the time to do nothing. Just be.  Earlier this week I read a beautiful quote by my friend on facebook, (thanks Sarah G.).  It really resonated with me. 

"The great gift of uncharted, unscheduled, un"productive" time: an evening wide open enough to allow wrestling/cuddling and reading with our children, long deep talks out on our front porch..."

Doesn't that just FEEL nice.  Just reading it?  A lot of our nights do have bits and pieces of that description in them, but it feels like there is always "something" brewing beyond what our hands our actually touching:  Plans for tomorrow, cleaning up, packing lunch, laundry, baths, bed, brush teeth, prayers, stories, hugs, kisses, fall on the couch!

 

It's not easy living in the present, but it can be so beautiful. A dear woman in our community died just recently. I thought of her the evening she died.  Watching the sun sink down beneath the hill. Did she know that morning, that it was her final sunrise?  That she would never see the sun set that day?  But instead, she would be ushered to see the Glorious Face of the Son?

There's a desire in me, in many of you, to live life to the fullest right where we're at.  I'll be the first to say that I'm not sure how that's done.  When the "demands" of my day seem to outweigh my heart.  Maybe it begins my acknowledging that "getting through" the day(s) isn't how we were created.  Of course, there are seasons of trudging on, of deep valleys of death and grief, when the next breath is all we think about, of the mundane and the necessary.  And they are just that,  SEASONS,  

not meant to be permanent dwelling places. 

So, wherever this moment finds you, I sincerely hope you can find a way to be truly present.  

You're definitely not alone in that pursuit. 

“Our spiritual life is a life in which we wait, 

actively present to the moment..."
~Henri Nouwen~

SPEAKING OF "PRESENT".... 
COME BACK LATER THIS WEEK FOR OUR CHRISTMAS GIFT-AWAY!
IT'S GOING TO BE LOVELY!