life is such an interesting tension. in some ways, it feels as if i am always changing, and yet at the same time like i have always been the same. i look back at me 15-20 years ago, and it is looking back at a dreamlike me that exists in only my memories. many people who know me now and have met me since i have had kids do not know the parts of me that largely defined who i was before marriage and kids. (or would it better be stated, who i thought i was? i am just as much me now as i was then, and yet so much has changed and shifted) dear friends from the past would probably not recognize the me i have become - the me that i have grown into and become comfortable with and who has survived and been molded by the ups and downs of life. i know that i myself at 18-20 would have never guess i would be a mom of 6 kids who home-schooled. just not what i saw for my life down the road.
and yet, i feel so much the same. i understand what people mean as they get older that it is really just our shell that ages. part of me feels exactly the same. i was jumping on the trampoline with my kids the other night and i felt just the same inside as when i was 12 jumping on the trampoline. i wasn't sure if i dared try the flips i used to do, but i felt that same thrill inside... i feel the same impulses to sing out in a crowd or dance for no reason just to be silly... i still love so much that i have always loved and feel like so little has changed inside.
where i am in life, i almost forget the parts of me that largely defined who i was before. when someone brings them up in a conversation, maybe just finding out something i used to do in the past, i feel this little spark light up in my heart and it is then that i start to miss so much that i used to do and love. and yet, i would never trade the life i have for the life i had. that is the thing of it all... what i have right now is so much better than i could have planned or picked for myself, even with all the hardship it carries in itself. really, the trials have matured me. i am the same, but a wiser me... a less impulsive me... a more compassionate me... a me that has to lean on the Lord more because i am more acquainted with my own weakness, with sorrow, with the fragility of life.
in all this rambling, i wonder what my life in 15-20 years from now will look like... i wonder if the people who meet me then in that season will be surprised at this current season i am in. i wonder if anything in my past will be reawakened and woven back into my life in the future. i wonder if this present reality will also seem like a far away dream.
life is funny like that. i feel so much the same and so much different. maybe turning another year old recently made me super reflective. i know it has made me even more thankful for the reality of eternity. i can't help but wonder how all the pieces of a person will be worked together to make who they are really called to be in eternity - when we don't feel bound by time constraints and feeling as if we have to choose what we will focus on and give our attention to. i wonder what it will look like to be able to explore all the desires and dreams the Lord has placed in our hearts and not feel somewhere inside that hour glass that is ticking and the finite nature of life. i wonder what it will be like to love more freely without feeling constraints of the brokenness of human nature inside and without misunderstandings or the weight of sin. will i finally be patient with my own brokenness or will that brokenness finally be whole? probably a little of both i expect. what will it be like to not be in a hurry or not wishing time would just slow down?
i look at my kids and i see how my oldest is 12. six more summers, in theory, until he is an adult... and who knows what lays in store for him. i straddle the tension of feeling the speed at which my older kids are growing up and still changing diapers and waking in the night to nurse my youngest... and i know that we aren't promised a certain number of years. i want to keep my heart present and fully thankful in each moment - not grieving or missing the past, or dreading or longing for the future, but being here. right. now. and allowing the Lord to do with the past, present, and future me whatever He wills to do.
charis
