Post-Thanksgiving Brain Dump: 2023 is rapidly coming to a close, and it’s amazing just how quickly. As a kid, it seemed like time moved so slowly and as bad as I wanted to be a grownup, it looked so far away.
Here I am, relatively unscathed, but not without my shortcomings. Sometimes I feel like I am living under my potential. Other times I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be in this time and space, while sometimes I don’t even want to get out of bed. Throughout this presence of mind, and especially lately, when I’m in a personal valley, and I’m down on myself and or my situation, I think of things for which to be grateful, areas where I can better practice grace, and pray for wisdom, discernment, guidance, and a heart that takes nothing and no one for granted.
That always leads to a larger question. For whom am I living this life? The one that was provided for me through infinite love and intelligence through vessels that exist for a moment in time. If not for myself, my child, my siblings, friends and family, then who? As a Believer ( big B not the little one) I should be living it for Christ, who yet laid down His life for us, but…if I’m honest, this life, with all its snares and potential for idolatry, moves me away from the focus on the One from whom all life flows, and more abundantly.
As a human, in order to reinvigorate or sustain a passion for anything in this life, one question must always be present: “why?” We must always know why. Usually, at the root of this question comes the basic formula to the issues and the postures of our hearts.
For the rest of this year, and going into 2024, I’m going to go to God (Big G, not the lil one) to help me re-examine the “why” in my life, because I feel like I had a finite “why” that I lost almost 20 years ago, and I’ve been wandering ever since. In some ways, I’ve been grateful because it taught me to lean on God and the kindness of others with a sense of hopeful optimism, but in other ways, it has proven to be a collapsible crutch to which I escape when I need an excuse to give up. Although life is a gift, the things that we do with it matter most in the grand scheme. I know I have impacted lives for the better, but what can I do to impact my own life for the better? Have I stepped out on faith too much or not enough? Do I take God’s favor or my favorite people for granted?
Am I still stuck in the mindset of that 22 year old girl that gave up her world to protect that of others; who didn’t feel like she got a fair shake at life? In some ways, maybe, but in others, not so much. With all of these questions, there is still one, that I know if asked earnestly in prayer and sought fervently in the Word and feedback from those that know and love me, I can learn so much more about why I’m here, and how to re-ignite the fire that burned so brightly to make my mother comfortable, secure, and proud of me into a fire that makes God well pleased.
Taller Than Ur Average™ 