Why Are You Always Running in Place?

Your hair is in my face, and laughter's in your eyes
And as the memory fades, all that's left is to cry  -Sandy Tolar


I thought my job was to be the strong one. I thought I was pretty good at it, too.

Very strange to realize how much you depended on the one who depended so much on you.

When someone is such a huge part of your life, I guess the tendency is to focus on that. If you're not careful, to focus on that exclusively.

The thing is, there's a great deal of pleasure to be had in dwelling on the good stuff. It's more than gratitude, though there is that.

Maybe it's a forgetfulness of other things that call for your attention. Maybe some of them not so pleasant, but which must nonetheless be attended to.

So when the prop is knocked out from under you, so to speak, there is a necessary redirection or re-ordering of your priorities.

This is good in that (a) it fills the empty place left by loss and (b) it allows you to consider what may have been previously neglected.

To be granted a "re-do," sort of.

It is refreshing to observe the blessings in vocation, to set aside discontentment and see instead the good. Where in the past, I was so jealous of my time, to now have "all the time in the world."

How selfish it is to desire only the good things God has given us and not want to give of ourselves. That time I so zealously guarded to my own ends I may now share outside the walls of my home.

Aren't idols found in the strangest places in our hearts?

Isn't God so merciful to allow His children second (and third?) chances to get it right?

What next I wonder?