Life is not a race, but indeed a journey

It is crazy how true and yet how bittersweet those words are. A startling reminder to me that all is not lost, this is just another leg of the journey. Our journey towards our true Home. We are east of Eden, and the life we find here is full of the sweetest joys yet also the deepest sufferings. Each day is a battle. Yet each day is also a gift.

We received this as a wedding present from a woman who I’ve known now for about seven years, a relationship that has truly transformed and shaped me from the inside out. She’s a Christian counselor I have seen off and on over the years, but she’s more than a counselor, she has become a woman I deeply admire and look up to, a woman who has led me to the Lord in ways she will never know. I’ve gotten to have a relationship with her outside of counseling, as her husband is on staff with Woodcrest, and she speaks at several of the women’s ministry events. She is a woman living out my dream, trained in Christian counseling and serving in the counseling world as well as the church in a thriving women’s ministry. It has been absolutely beautiful to see the ministry God has developed through her.

She connects with people in a way that gives life. She has a way of allowing the spirit of God to direct all she does and lead people to the freedom that comes from walking in truth.

In my appointment last week, we just rehashed the wedding and the entire wedding day. it was so amazing to have her at the wedding, and meant so much to know she normally doesn’t “cross” the lines of client and personal affairs, but felt she has had a special connection with me and in the women’s events we’ve participated in together that she said she wouldn’t miss it for the world. It was just so cool to have someone who has been there through so many of the valleys of my journey. To someone who has seen where I was seven years ago and gotten to watch what the Lord has done in my heart and life over the years.

Towards the end of the appointment, she told me she had a late wedding gift for us, she had to leave after the ceremony because of another event going on at Woodcrest that night, and didn’t want to leave it at the church because it could’ve gotten broken in transporting.

She said she has been wanting to get just the right gift for weeks now and hadn’t felt she’d landed on one yet. She really wanted to get something with special meaning, and it was the day of our wedding and she still hadn’t found what she was looking for. Then, she felt led to go to Hallmark to at least start with a card, hoping the right words would spark something. Then, not two seconds after she enters the store, she finds it.

She saw this gift and knew it was it. She then told me, (all of this before I had gotten home to open the gift with Ben), that she knew it was what she was looking for, as this had been a huge blessing to have in her home when she first got married and something that still is hanging up today, along with it was something her mother gave to all her daughters, as one piece of advice to hold onto over the years. Knowing her relationship with me and how she has also been able to be a part of my relationship with Ben, she had no doubts this was the perfect gift she wanted to give us.

Ben and I opened it this weekend when we finished opening presents and as soon as I saw the tree and read the first few lines, I could see exactly what she was talking about.

I don’t know much, but I do know that life is short. It can’t be taken for granted. At times in our lives, we are given over to circumstances that shake us. Rattle us to the bone and remind us anew that our lives are fragile. Where we come to realize anew that each day is truly a gift.

We are on a journey, we are not yet home.

Life is too short. Here today and gone tomorrow. Yet each day we have an opportunity to live or to simply exist.

I love this entire poem, but especially about appreciating the little things in life. Those are the precious moments, the gifts we’ve been given, that can transform an ordinary moment into a treasured memory. Like today, I felt God breathing life into my soul again after a rough week dealing with the medical profession again, through a few simple words.

It’s the little things in life that can so speak to our hearts that can often go unnoticed. Or the little text notes my husband sent me while I was watching So You Think You Can Dance tonite at Stevi’s, coming home to someone who loves me and missed me while I was gone, just reminding me that I am chosen and loved.

It was just coming home to him and enjoying being together again, the little things that were just enough to continue to encourage my heart again tonite. I love the part in the poem where it says, sometimes the best things really are free. And that life is not a race, we are exactly where we’re supposed to be.

It is such a beautiful reminder that we are on a glorious journey, a pilgrimage through this life, as we get closer and closer to home. That there is a purpose to our lives, there is meaning and significance, no detail is accidental.

I think this spoke volumes to me today as I looked at it again, as I’ve been in a state of grieving once again, this sickness that has made its unwelcome return and seeming permanence in my life.

All I have is each day, to open up my hands to my Father, and ask Him how to live for today. Relying on Him to make it hour to hour, to know what I can and cannot do, what I should and shouldn’t do. the moments I feel like it is not fair, that this sickness has taken so much of my life away, that it has almost like I’ve been in another world, as I realized the other day when I attended a women’s bible study with my church, that it has been now four months since I was able to go to a Rock event.

Four months. So much life has happened. So much time has passed, it was as if I had been gone for years. I realized how utterly separate my life had become. I have had visitors and people at the house helping me nearly every other day and had friends come by to see me if I couldn’t get out, but it had been months since I was back in that environment. Except for my wedding, but that day I didn’t feel it, it was a time to celebrate and rejoice in all that God has done and how beautiful He is!

I was tempted to say the other day I’ve missed out on four months of life, but that statement wouldn’t be accurate nor even close to the truth. I have missed out on the “life” I had been living. But have been brought to an entirely different way of life. one with little distractions and one in which I have come once again face to face with my Savior, the One who alone can provide streams in the desert. The One who knows the way that I take. Who has walked every inch of this journey I’m on before me, who leads me gently and patiently hand in mine, as we travel the rugged terrain of the unknown.

When I am in moments where I’m most frustrated about how much this sickness has taken over my life, sometimes nearly simultaneously I wonder what it all means. Will this be a period of time I will look back on? And see all the treasures that came out of this season? How long will this leg of the journey lsat and how does it all play out? Is this part of my journey meant to live within the limits of this sickness or will there be a solution? What does life look like with this for the long haul, and is this really Your will, Your plan for my life right now?

It’s moments like that that I am reminded the blessing of the word journey. As Beth Moore says, many times when we are going through difficult seasons, our hearts can be so heavy with sorrow and discouragement and we feel stuck. We feel the way things are is how they are always going to be, or at least for a while. We start to lose hope because we can’t imagine living another day under the weight of our circumstances, but she reminds us that we are pilgrims… and by the word pilgrims, that implies that we are travelers… we are on a journey, “we are simply passing through.”

Here’s the words on the beautiful painting we received and that I cannot wait to hang in our new home!!!

Living Life

"Life is not a race - but indeed a journey. Be honest. Work hard. Be choosy.
Say "thank you", "I love you", and "great job" to someone each day. Go to church, take time
for prayer. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh. Let your handshake mean more than pen and paper. Love your life and what you've been given, it is not accidental - search for your purpose and do it as best you can. Dreaming does matter. It allows you to become that which you aspire to be. Laugh often. Appreciate the little things in life and enjoy them. Some of the best things really are free. Do not worry, less wrinkles are more becoming. Forgive, it frees the soul. Take time for yourself - plan for longevity. Recognize the special people you've been blessed to know.

Live for today, enjoy the moment."

Written by artist Bonnie Mohr

- Top photo from our honeymoon in Colorado!