Give...A LOT!

I haven’t written a lot lately, but fear not…I‘ve still had a lot of words. :) Mostly I keep them in my head where they belong, but sometimes I speak them out loud …which can be very, very good, and...very, very bad! In the last 2 weeks, there are 2 specific incidences that come to mind that I have rewritten/said over and over, to where if I were to do it all again - it would be a much more concise expression of my feelings and my thoughts. Really, it would be!!   Unfortunately – we don’t often get “re-do’s” in life. Stinks!! We don’t get a lot of things, and I’m reminded of it every day!! Whether it’s the messages blaring from our media sources, the communities we live in, the places we shop, or the things we are told we deserve. If I listen to this “message” to long I am overwhelmed and could quickly grab my keys and drive off into the sunset…quite frankly, sometimes I could do this anyways! I am a mother of girls after all! :)
I’m tired. I’m a wee bit weary. I feel skeptical more than I care to admit-and way more often that I would like! After an overwhelming 2 years, I sat down at 2:30 in the morning and started pouring through some old journals, pathetic notes, (wow! what a baby i can be!) and embarrassingly humbling thoughts I’ve had. (Sadly this was an attempt to clean out my desk and “stuff”), but alas, I failed at that and my ADD mind has led me, to remind you, (im sure you're thrilled!) that maybe like me, you sometimes feel like we don’t “get” a lot or we are missing out on something more, whatever that looks like!



But let me tell you what we do get

• Options to say, “I’m sorry, really I am.”
& people that say, “it’s ok, I still love you just the same” (and mean it!)…
• Time to reflect on what could have been, what should have been, and what will be done different ~
& time to recognize that even though we think we’d change it all…sometimes things happen for a reason, a season, or for no conceivable rationale at all. They just happen and we roll with it, and trust God with it…
• Loads of grace, ceaseless mercy,(my Wednesday morning group just nodded their heads emphatically!!) and overwhelming forgiveness…anyone?
& the opportunity to give back as much as you have been given in each of these areas…
• The mind to accept what is being said…and yet the heart to feel what isn’t…
• The invaluable gift of understanding what it is to love your child, and recognize that it’s only a infinitesimal amount of the way God loves us, …and ours…

We get loads of joy- the kind of joy that brings tears to your eyes – joy that says, “I cannot believe it!!” or that leaves you with sore cheeks from laughing so hard you thought you’d wet your pants…or maybe you did? T.M.I.!!...We get soul deepening heartaches – the ones that leave you wondering “why?” at first glimpse, but later leave you with the peace to know that in God’s mercy He has willed it and/or allowed it…because He loves you so much…(so hard when you are here…so, so hard…).  We get timeless mental “clips” of memories we’ve observed from our kitchen tables while our kids giggled and laughed at silly things, things you cant even remember today- but that your mind cannot erase the smile, or the look,  on their face...or from our sofa as our husbands held our broken hearted child with a tenderness you didn’t know, or believe, he could have ever mustered (who can love a girl through heart wrenching bad choices like a loving father? tear.)…We get beautiful, awe inspiring moments where we see things that no-one else will ever see, or get – even if you tried to explain it to them…(and Lord knows i've tried before!!)

We get friendships… life changing friendships. The ones that span broken hearts, hurt feelings, potty training kids, +/- 50 pounds, bad habits, broken marriages,100’s or even 1000’s of miles, late lunches, later phone calls, failed attempts at change, surgeries, months with no contact , rebellious teens, instant “home” in one word, husbands who fail, sick kids, exhausted, frazzled, hysterical “I suck at this” moments, winning moments, character attacks, pj’s at 3 in the afternoon, dirty homes, tears for no apparent reason, and even overwhelming schedules …friendships that lasts…regardless. No if’s, and’s, or but’s…

We get a lot. We really do. It’s just not measurable by dollars and cents, or even pictures and scrapbooks. I can’t sell you what I possess – you have to get your own. I can’t even tell you how to get it…but I can tell you this:
You will never buy it, it’s just your gift. When you get it – you know. Sometimes you are overwhelmed by how much you get, and other times you wonder if you are just failing miserably at being a human being…but we all have a lot. Too much really. And definitely more than we can stand to hang on to selfishly. The crazy part of it is this – if you don’t give some of it, it turns sour, and eventually terminates on itself. I mean how many friendships can you have if you don’t offer friendship to others? How do you know the depth of someone’s heart, if you never share your own? Can you take a mental memory with you if you never observe what’s around you? I think not!


Give.


But save your money…offer something life changing instead…you. Just be you. It’s plenty!

thinking to much...too late...,
~Penny