I love the promise of a new year.
A clean slate.
A blank book.
A fresh start.
A new beginning.
I've been praying about what God wants me to focus on
and how He wants me to stretch and change and grow in this new year.
I've noticed that much of my life
{much more than I'd like to admit}
is not spent in the here and now.
In the midst of any given moment,
I'm thinking ahead to the next event, the next day,
the next task on my long list of things to do.
I'm not fully present in the moment-
not reveling in the gift of what God has given me.
Not focusing on the people I am blessed to have in my life
sitting right in front of me
but instead jumping ahead to a moment that is yet to be.
Neglecting now for a tomorrow that hasn't even happened.
While talking with some sweet friends this week the talk turned to
children growing up and how you never know
when it will be the last time a child does something as a baby.
You'll never know the last time they let you rock them to sleep,
to mispronounce a word in a cute way,
to do any of those precious things for the last time
as they grow out of babyhood and into childhood.
That conversation has stuck with me and
I find myself thinking of it over and over and over again.
I keep thinking how that truly applies to all of our life.
We are not promised tomorrow and we don't know if that
last conversation with a friend,
that last trip to visit a parent,
that last meal shared as a family
could be the one you are experiencing today.
If we knew it were - wouldn't we be fully 100% there
and focused on those people in front of us?
Soaking in every single detail about them,
hanging on every word they said, loving them fully and completely?
My answer to that is YES. Heck yes!
So my goal this year
{among the standard lose weight, eat healthier, exercise, blah blah blah}
is to live fully and in today.
To be here in this moment- not the one yet to be.
To participate fully.
To treasure each day as the gift that it is.
To stop being so busy planning for tomorrow
or next week or next month or next year
and instead live NOW.
To stop multi-tasking all the time and instead savor today.
To relish and languish in the gifts of the people in my life.
To soak up each day.
To linger, to laugh, to slow down.
To relish.
To live abundantly.
Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.
~Mary Jean Iron~