A year is an interesting amount of time. Can you remember being a little kid? I year was FOREVER! That’s why going from being 8 to being 9 was a HUGE deal. Then, as time goes by, you look at years going by a little bit faster.
You enter college a freshman and before you know it, you are graduating and somewhere in there you utter for the first time, “Where did the time go?”
But even in your 20’s and 30’s you see a year as a short amount of time and also something you have a lot of – almost an unlimited supply.
Then you hit 40. You think, “Man, I am half way done, time is flying, I can see the end, and I can count the years.”
I was looking over my little sporadic offerings to the Blog god’s, and noticed right away that my first writing was a year ago. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately – well I do a lot of thinking all the time, but lately I have been thinking about my life – where it’s been and where it is going. I am taking a class for school that is requiring me to put together a timeline of my life among other things – analysing where I have been developed, challenged, and formed as a leader.
A year ago I was ready to launch after many years of rearing children and keeping the houshold running and wanting adventure of my own. Now I don’t want to leave my children for too long – I want to spend time with them. There is so much I have left to teach them. They are more important than the huddled masses.
A year ago, I had my mom. Now I don’t. I never lived a year like last year walking alongside mom.
A year ago, I didn’t have any health problems – now I do. It sucks. I am doing my best to deal with it, but I’ve never been really sick before.
A year ago I was straining at the bit to go out and live a radical life for Jesus. Now I have completely changed my definition of a radical life and I have a whole blog to write about the difference between radical obedience and true obedience.
Some things are the same as they were last year. I struggle with life, with faith, with relationships, with being too fat. But somehow I am giving myself a little more grace lately – being more patient as I watch this guy walk through life trying to figure it all out.
And I wonder – what will the next year bring? If last year had kids graduations, weddings, beginning college, and my starting college and losing my mom and getting a bad heart diagnosis – what will this year bring?
I am learning to look at life differently now. I don’t take the years for granted, or the people in my life who populate those years.
Against all odds and statistics, I’ve been married to the same faithful girl for 25 years now.
I can see His Grace in my life. I am thankful.
What will you do this year, Lord?
