Melancholy Musings

The journey we’re on: from a comfortable, predictable life to a life where my only certainty is the unchanging nature of God.


This has been an unusual few weeks for me. As I’ve said before, I wish life would slow down sometimes. I get melancholy when I realize that the days fly by faster and faster and that my babies are growing up. I get melancholy when I realize that I don’t burn the images of them into my brain like I want to and like I used to. That someday I’ll forget what Naomi’s voice sounds like when she says “bye-bye” or “hey baby”. That I’ll forget, as I already have, all the words that Jude messes up. Words like balloon (badabadoon) or elevator (alligator). As smart as he is, there aren’t that many left and I don’t correct him because I love it. I know that someday I’ll wish I’d watched Sam play drums more and told him all the stories he wanted instead of cleaning and checking my email.

I know that time has to pass and that’s just how life is, but I’m in, and have been, in a weird season. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but I just don’t feel like life has as manageable a pace as it used to. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. Maybe it’s just my perspective that’s wrong. Maybe I’ve just had to shelve all the memory making for a while in order to survive. That’s very possible given all the changes we’ve been through in such a short time. But I don’t want to forget all the little things. At the very least, I want to know I fully lived into every day, including the hard ones. Because I will forget, I know that’s a fact. No matter how many photos I take and how many cute things I write down, I will forget. I can’t remember it all.

But I guess as I write this, I am realizing I don’t fear the forgetting as much as I fear regretting. That’s what it is I fear. Regret over how I spent my time. Or even more so, did I really invest in each day? How “in” was I each day? Was I just there in body, but not really there? Was my mind always somewhere else, wishing the day away? Did I, do I live into every moment I’m given with Ross, with my kids, with the people I love?

I am a striver. Always always striving. A ceaseless striver toward the next goal, the next accomplishment, the next task. And yet I know that deep down in my core, I was not made to strive. I was made to be, to rest and sit in the shadow of God’s wing. To rest in Him, and find my joy and energy and purpose and calling and hope and contentment in Him. To know that when I really truly rest in Him, I am more alive than I could ever be.

We are thinking a lot about our future and about taking greater steps of faith. We are re-learning the true cost of discipleship and walking through some of the hard teachings of Christ with our community. We are asking God to shake us up and give us His heart for the poor and needy and to give us grace to live that out. I’ll hopefully share more in the days to come. I am unsure of what God will call us to do or what His plans are. He is unpredictable. But I am hopefully being awakened from a fog that I’ve been in. A fog of keeping my eyes too close to the ground and not up at the sky. It’s a sad thing to always be looking down, searching for the next step. I’d rather look up and see the light, see the beautiful sky and trust God’s hand to lead me down the path. I want to see the world and eternity as He sees it.

“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.”
C.S. Lewis