Category: Uncategorized (Page 15 of 71)

What if you knew that what you were about to say was the last thing you’d say to someone; to anyone at all?

What if all the distractions in this life were keeping you from noticing the thing, the person, the small something that was the reason in the first place?

What if the attention you’re paying to someone or something is less than the best one or thing?  That it’s sucking the liquid in your eyeballs  from staring too hard and the space in your brain right dry?   That it’s causing you to strive for what you don’t really need or want? That the virtual world is more real than real is?  That you keep forgetting to look up and take stock?

What if, on the way to getting somewhere, you passed where you were supposed to be?

What if you didn’t notice that someone had just told you they loved you because they did it quiet with a meal or a sentence written on a card?  Or yelled it at you to get your attention and you yelled back because you thought they were mad?  What if your kid needs you more than whoever just texted you or what if you missed all the status updates for a day….or four….and made the voice overs stop so your heart could think?  Who or what needs your attention really?

 My girl and I made this sign when the days passed eager to get to our new school this year.  I wanted to pose the question to myself and to the kids I’d yet to meet.  What kind of person do I want to become……because I am living out the story of redemption, either the how to or the how not to.

What if something happened that forced you to pay attention to your choices?  What if that’s what Love decided for you since He died for you?  So that you wouldn’t miss the point.

“”Wake yourself, wake yourself…stand up, Oh Jerusalem!  (Is. 51)  Awake, awake!  Put on your strength, Oh Zion! (Is. 52)  I can hear it whisper in my soul as I make my way through my day, the slow and steady drumming of enticement for my attention that bites at my mind and heels.  I pace the floors in the school gym calling for the dross of distraction to burn off of us all.  We don’t have time, we don’t have time……I want to warn people……we don’t have the luxury to waste our time.

Pay attention to your attention.

Recently, I sat with friends in a coffee shop; the kind that take you deep or take you silly in one conversation. We’d made a pact to get there on a Saturday at 8:00 a.m. because we were just that hungry for connection.  Ah, it’s a boon to my thirsty soul to find these real women, women who want to get real and struggle or play Exploding Kittens and laugh at r i d i c u l o u s.  It’s been a long time coming, these friends. I had a select one or two along the journey.  Perhaps though, the truth might be that I wasn’t real myself and would have run hiding at this kind of transparency.  Fact is, I don’t have time to “play” anymore.  I don’t have time for surface.  And I will grab hold of you eager and sloppy and look you right in the eye to know you, know you.

While we go deep though?  I need you to know that I might break out in song….loudly….in public on a happy spring day precisely because I am happy.  I have a tendency to walk up to total strangers and tell them I think they’re pretty, take the entire tray off of someone’s hands when they offer me a sample in the grocery store and walk off with it (I eventually bring it back), I laugh too long and too loud when I get the giggles and can’t seem to get myself to stop (I’ve been known to have to pull over in the car because I can’t get ahold of myself).  I can be spontaneous and free spirited when it just seems too grown up and I feel it my duty to lighten the mood. (I’m probably not the one to take in a board room).

Time was, I would need to feel safe with you to be all of that.  And the burden would be on you to prove yourself safe.  Now?  I’ve gained a freedom that moves me to be the safe place for you.  That’s because it suddenly occurred to me that the God of the universe actually loves me.  And I have nothing to lose except maybe a little sleep or some hurt feelings now and again when the investment seems to show no return. I don’t have to take scraps off of others’ tables anymore.  My recovery time from those things has gained momentum when I bought my ticket to His love train.  And as I’ve passed out free passes to others, I find the joy multiplies and it rains sunshine when others find the courage to open their windows and feel the wind on their face.

I will never be the prettiest or the mover and shaker in the room. I look in the mirror and notice the lines around my eyes go much more crinkly deep when I smile now.  But I’m smiling (when I’m not crying or philosophizing).  And I’m not lonely from building my castle high anymore. I may have days when the wind blows hollow but now I have people to go to that let me be pathetic for a minute and don’t label me weak.  My friend in the coffee shop that early Saturday morning was animatedly describing her dog to me.  She’s always just. SO. excited. to see whoever comes to our house, my friend says. She’s sure they’ve come to see her and she jumps up and puts her paw on their arm and stares right at them barking and licking until they look at her.  “Jamie.  I am your dog; you just described me!  Send me her picture!”  And there on my phone screen, I looked into that dogs’ eager, longing eyes and saw myself.  Minus the beard.  Fortunately.

So if you see me coming toward you, brace yourself for a welcome jump up your leg.  And bring newspaper to lay down on the floor.  I can get overly excited.

I spent all night last night sleeping restlessly, waking up and crying, falling back to sleep, rinse; wash; repeat.  It’s strange, this rise of emotion.  I’ve known, like you know your name, that my boy would go back to Africa.  It’s just that I’d gotten comfortable telling him “You’re going to go back one day. You watch.  You wait.  You’ll see.”  And now “one day” was here.  And I could scarce look it in the face.

I’m not a stranger to setting my charges free.  I’ve had six children.  Half of them have gone far, far away before.  Two of them still are.  One just recent came back to live here in the city.  That one, my beautiful Hannah Rose, came up soft next to me today.  “You okay, mama?  Why are you crying?”  She asked honest, her face close to mine, her arm wrapped around me.  “It’s hard to explain,” I told her.  It’s hard to tell anyone else but a mama what the landscape in your heart does as you stand and watch your kid unearth your will to steel yourself and disappear out of your sight.  The last thing I could see was Caleb turn and look back and wave, once, twice, three times.

Everyone else turned to leave.  I couldn’t move for a minute.  I just couldn’t.  I felt arms wrap around me.  His friends and my kids had gathered around and leaned in.  The tears fell.  The movie in my mind from little boy to man grown raced through my head.  I wanted to yell “I LOVE YOU!” so it would echo all the way to South Africa.  Instead, I whispered….Father, go before him, behind him, beside him.  Let nothing be in vain.

We don’t know, do we, not really, if we’ll see one another again when any of us says goodbye.  So I open my hand wide this time.  I’m learning with each goodbye, whether until tomorrow or for a year, that our times are fully in His hands.  This life is a transition and nothing will last forever.  If I must say goodbye, I will do it bravely.

So tonight, somewhere high in the sky, my boy sits in a plane, miles spreading themselves between us as I type this.  He will go from winter to summer in less than 48 hours.  I will wait eagerly for that first vlog post, blessing the day of technology that we find ourselves in.  I’ve raised him strong and failed him miserably, all at the same time.  We walked out of the airport today, my Hannah coming up alongside me.  “Well mama, this is what happens when you raise us to be adventurous,” she smiled.

I know, my girl.  I know.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.