As I approach my 41st birthday and reflect on the journey these past couple years, I realize how incredibly difficult I make things for God.
I am the proverbial lost sheep who refuses to stay with the flock. He finds me. He guides me. I see a pretty bird or a scary tree and decide I know a better way.
Realizing this…sucks.
But gosh, what was it – TWO YEARS ago – that during a morning meditation he gave me a “top 3” to complete each day: time with God, exercise, write – repeat.
Is there anything simpler? I mean, I guess he could have told me to “brush thy teeth,” but in the grand scheme of things – his instruction is pretty gosh darn simple.
He didn’t ask me to end world hunger or even to help a Republican and Democrat learn to speak to one another as human beings again. He just told me to spend a little time with him, exercise, write – and repeat.
And here I sit. 40 years, 364 days and 18-ish hours old, but acting like a small child who didn’t hear the instructions.
This is my first blog post in I don’t even know how long. I could check, but I don’t want to.
I weigh more than I’ve ever weighed without a full-term baby about to be born (cue full inbox of “I HAVE THE WEIGHT LOSS SYSTEM FOR YOU!” messages). And I’ve gotten in the nasty habit of scrolling social media during my morning sunrise hours instead of focusing on and listening to God.
Why even write this? Because I created the Life’s Etc blog as a place for total honesty. It’s easy to be honest when things are going well, but it’s important to be honest when they’re not.
The title of this blog is “Life Adjacent.” I’m reading Catherine Ryan Hyde’s Heaven Adjacent right now. I’m not finished. It’s one of those special books I’m happy to read slowly. The plot is wonderful: an attorney wakes up one day and just leaves…she finds a property that provides peace, and there’s a lot of references to it feeling like heaven’s there…just beyond the creek.
This is how I feel, but it’s not heaven adjacent…it’s life. I’m breathing. I do all the things a person MUST do to continue functioning…but this isn’t the life God intended for me. I know I don’t need to run away to find a property that feels like heaven. Heaven is with me. It’s just buried beneath a mountain of ego.
I don’t know how this is going to end. None of us do. But tomorrow I will be 41. And while I won’t be any closer to being a published author or lose the extra pounds literally weighing me down – this life adjacent thing is stopping now.