"It's like washing dishes. If you focus on getting the dishes done so that your kitchen will be clean, you miss everything that happens between dirty and clean. The warmth of the water, the pop of the bubbles, the movement of your hand. You miss the life that happens in the middle zone---between now and what you think your life should be like. And when you miss those moments because you'd rather be doing something else, your are missing your own life".
-- Geneen Roth in Women Food and God
A desire to rush to the future, to the ways that I "think my life should be like" is my biggest temptation right now.
~ I want it to be summer
~ I want to be done with school
~ I want a consistent, full-time, salary paying job
~ I want to be married
~ I want to decorate and fill-up my own place with special things and memories
~ I want to pay off my student loans
~ I want to cook, garden and be an awesome homemaker
~ I want to have a family: a baby or two..or adopt...and be a foster parent
~ I want financial stability
~ I want to travel
Learning to be patient and to appreciate this moment is hard work for me.
I believe in the beauty and power of the present.
I am an advocate for mindfulness, but I still yearn for specific future changes with great energy. I want these things my way and I don't want to have to wait too long.
I feel like I've done enough waiting.
This 'Middle zone' seems never-ending.
During Lent this season we are studying through the traditional Seven Deadly Sins and Holy Virtues. I'm not sure which of these my present condition relates best with (so far we've looked at pride, lust, gluttony, and greed), but this challenge of not taking the present for granted is the theme that I have been constantly bombarded with during this study.
I can't shake it. I am more and more aware of my impatience.
So here I am.
Lord, Thank you for this mysterious day and for your plans for my life. Help me to see the beauty in the 'middle zone'. Help me to trust in you and receive your peace.
I needed this. Seriously. I have been so focused on the future- the 'next things'- that I have been rushing though and wishing away all the life I am supposed to be living now, right here. I am not guaranteed tomorrow, let alone a house or babies or a puppy or a new job, so why do I waste today in my impatient struggle?
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing wise words!
LOVE this. i am so honored and encouraged by you, court. your honesty and vulnerability is strength. all of this takes me back to some of our first deep conversations over cold tangerines. waiting and being active.
ReplyDeletei want and trust all of those things will come. praying and praising God for who he has created and shaped you to be to this point and for the future that he will bring. love you, friend.
Shaina and Emilie, Thank you both for your kind feedback! I appreciate it greatly.
ReplyDelete