Live Where You Are

Life can get messy.  I'm tired this morning after a night full of Chatterbox and Baby taking turns in waking me up.  As I cough up what feels like chunks of my lungs, I'm thinking it's waaaaay too long sinceI visited either my own grandmother, or my husband's grandmother.  But I shouldn't visit them while I'm sick...

And a hundred thoughts of what I would like to do if I could are swirling around in my head.  But I'm finally learning something which I wish I'd really understood a looooong time ago.  I need to accept today for what it is.  As long as I give brain space to all the coulda, shoulda, wanna thoughts, I'm wasting this day that I'm living in right now.

As a kid, I spent so many years waiting to be a grown up.  Then, as a uni student, I was killing time waiting for the love of my life to come along.  Well, not completely - I had other plans too, but it wasn't until I was into my second year of uni that I finally "clicked" that I was living life, not waiting for it to begin - that I needed to live where I was, rather than waiting to be somewhere else.  That I needed to choose to live with purpose now, rather than drift in a sea of what-ifs.

But it's easy to forget that while, yes, I need to make plans and have intentions, in the end I can only actually live where I am right now.  If I want to be somewhere else, then I need to actually go there, rather than just waiting to magically arrive.

In other words, instead of longing for the day when my kids are more independent, I need to actually equip them for independence today... or, if that's not an option, I need to switch off the pointless longings and work on something that I can actually do.  I need to live where I am.

Yes, there is a place for healthy grief when our dreams are blown out of the water.  I've been there more than once.  But if grief is threatening to swallow me alive, then something needs to change.  I need to accept today as it is and live where I am.  Not where I wish I was.

Today, for me, that means resting, praying, reading the Bible, eating well, getting out in the sun, sitting here writing... wedged in between the reality of being a mother of four still-young girls.  Instead of fighting that reality, I need to embrace it, accept it and do it with all of my might.

Nope, there's no glamour and glory in laundry and dishes and brushing hair and guiding four little people in a hundred mundane and barely-visible ways.  But that's where I live right now, so that's what I need to do with all my might.

So how about you join me today?  Live where you are.  Accept today for what it is and live it for the glory of God.