He Lives

Saturday night at Old Navy

It took a little reassurance to get Dash close to the Bunny, but before long he was giving him a high-five.

This week…has been an abnormal, unsettling week, and I have been pretty absent online. (One of my best friends who lives many miles away even called to check on me.) There has been a lot on my mind even before this week…a lot of retrospective and challenging events taking place in my little world around me and in my little (well, actually big) head. Plus, I spent the first half of one day in the hospital with a family member who was having heart tests. I had an MRI done on my brain, and I awaited those results. (Both tests turned out normal and fine.) Someone I knew from college passed away, and then...a close friend of mine lost his mom. When someone I love dies or someone I love has someone he/she loves die…I just sort of stop. Everything else seems so...like nothing at all.

I can praise God for so many things during the hard times…I really can…almost all the way. I do, but there are certainly moments that I don’t. I’m not a morning person. If my kids wake me up before 7 (and anything before 8 is not ideal), I feel like I have a hangover, and I’m not happy about it. (I’ve never actually had a hangover; I’m only presuming what it would feel like.) I am certainly not joyful or thinking things along the lines of “Praise God for this beautiful morning!” or “Praise God for my sweet kids who woke me up this great day!” I want to think those things first thing in the morning, though, and that is one thing I am working on. What if it was the last day I spent on earth with them…is that how I would have wanted the day to begin? I'm only using the early morning situation to symbolize something greater. I think I’ve needed to wake up literally AND metaphorically lately…I have MORE than I should even have at all. I am not deserving, and yet I spend too much time wanting more, and I’m not even talking about material items. This is one of my flaws, and it has presented itself lately in unflattering ways. As I listened yesterday to all the amazing accolades being bestowed upon a special woman at her funeral, I couldn't help but wonder if I would have handled her situation with as much strength as she did...I would hope so...but I don't know.

I’m really glad that today is Easter. I guess there was no better day for my spirits to be raised. At church this morning, my wise, wonderful pastor shared a quote from Yogi Berra. “It ain’t over til it’s over.” It was just what I needed to hear in this time of feeling down. I am truly my own worst enemy. I can feel sorry for myself. I can feel lonely. I can question why bad things have happened to me and to other good people. I may wonder what the point of life even is. I’m a pretty laid-back, easygoing person who doesn’t get rattled easily. I’ve been rattled lately, though. However, this morning's message made me think about a verse I often find encouragement from…I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live. Deuteronomy 30:19 “My life isn’t over until He says it’s over.” And if my life isn’t over, then I sure have a lot to do while I’m here. Why do I waste a minute of it?

He lives…and I CHOOSE LIFE. Happy Easter.