Roller Coaster

I certainly don't blog much, considering how much I love to write.  Life has had us on a roller coaster this summer, and there hasn't been much time to think things through, much less put them to words.



 "You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.  Up, down, up, down.  Oh, what a ride!  I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it."


(Brownie points for anyone who can name that offensive-in-some-scenes, yet-has-some-strong-points-to-it movie.)

Indeed, I will take the roller coaster over the merry-go-round any day, but that doesn't take away the fact that this life path we've chosen has me quite whipped and jolted at times.  Life is quite simply--FULL--and although I'm so thankful for that, I'm also tired.

We have had some brief, "quiet" (it's all relative, you know) reprieves.

 

But mostly there's a constancy.  There's a blessed constancy of meeting physical needs and mental needs and spiritual needs and also little-boy-talk and preteen talk and education planning and  meal planning and meal prep and meal clean-up and snuggling and "doctoring" and paperwork and more paperwork and  Mt. Laundry and I won't go on because I've lost most of you anyway (!) Life throws in the death of a parent, some very emotional reunions, two gonna-kill-me Strep infections, a trip to the ER, the adoption process, no time to process any of it, and you've got yourself a roller coaster. 

I'm also learning that as your little ones grow into bigger ones, it causes you to be even more aware how short the days really are.  So much that needs to happen, so many things that we want to do, yet not enough time for any of it.  You routinely feel like your day just began and yet it's time for the nightly bedtime routine.  You're ready to start out the week but suddenly it's Friday.  You still feel like a new mommy, but you wake up with a 12-year-old.  Our pastor just spoke about this very thing.  He said basically, that it doesn't seem there's enough time in the day for everything...because there isn't enough time in the day for everything!  Even still, everything has its proper time.  The Word says so, and I believe it.  

How imperative it is, then, that we live the fullness of our current season--whatever that is.  We can't afford to be wishing ahead or pining for before.  This is the moment God has given us to live--right now.  There are things that can only be accomplished now in this season, that we may miss, if we give into the distractions of before or later.  We aren't guaranteed anything else...

ahhh....besides the after of this life...which will never end...and there WILL be time for

every.

thing.

It's ok then, and even preferable, to ride the roller coaster here, even if you get a little whipped and jolted.  Even if it seems everyone around you is moving forward and you feel like you're treading water.  Even if you feel you can't get to all the things you want to do.  What's important is that you get to all the things you should do--those things that can only be done in this season.  Those things that God put you here to fulfill.  The proper season for the other things will come, even if not in this lifetime.  I want so much for my life to be poured out completely...to live fully in each season I'm given.  I want it more than comfort.  I want it more than predictability. 

Thank You, Lord, for my roller coaster.  Give me the grace and wisdom to fulfill those things which can only be fulfilled during this season.