Lately, I've been looking back and trying to remember seasons throughout life. I find myself grasping for a clear picture of important places and people. My childhood home in Tulsa, where I lived for around 15 years, seems like a fading memory. Oddly, the garage is one of the most vivid pictures in my mind. It recently hit me that it was a four bedroom home and I can hardly picture the 4th bedroom. I keep thinking about that house and trying to form images in my head. Sadly, it is just a blurred recollection.
Another season that comes to mind with little clarity would be the college years. Yesterday, we received a 20 year reunion letter with a focus on fundraising from the class of 1993. As a classroom teacher for 7 years (combined), I have yet to make the amount of money Mom and Dad forked over so that I could enjoy the luxury of a degree from Vanderbilt University. While I spent formative years in Nashville, I can remember so little of the specifics from my time there.
Even during this high speed season of parenting, with a house of teenage girls and all the drama that comes from middle school and high school relationships, (I guess some things are better forgotten.) I can barely remember details from raising the girls in the early and slower paced years. Thank goodness for a joke worthy (endless) number of photos to remind me of God's blessing and goodness to us with three daughters. He continually showers our parenting with grace during each passing year.
As we look forward to many exciting seasons of life, including
driving, college, weddings and hopefully grandchildren, my gaze will be
lifted just beyond these obvious blessings as I long for my heavenly home where there will be no fading memory, pain or sadness and where we will rest peacefully and gloriously in the Lord's presence.
For now, I feel like I'm in the middle of the story of life. (Some call it mid-life.) I wonder if many others have similar experiences in their forties. Combined with four decades of living, 2012 brought a mid-life shift in focus as I witnessed profound hopelessness, suffering and even death. Abundant and blessed memories from the past are dimming, yet my gaze for eternity with the Lord is coming into focus with precise and intense vision. Oddly, I have some memories that are crystal clear in my mind. Many, if not all, of the memories relate to deep spiritual moments with the Lord during transforming and difficult times. I'm becoming convinced, in the midst of all these seemingly important, yet obviously forgettable, seasons of life, God is writing a story of redemption, faithfulness, grace, mercy and steadfast love in my life. Future chapters are a mystery to me but the end of the story is one of great joy, profound hope and everlasting peace.
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, no any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39
No comments:
Post a Comment