Next Time Around

Two morning realizations:

If I get thirty more political flyers in the mail I just might vote for myself next week,

And if you fill your actual real mug (which apparently makes you look “extra” to workers when you ask for one) with a little of every coffee offering at Panera it just may be the 7th grade equivalent of mixing each soda in one cup at the gas station fountain.

Hi friends.

It’s been a hot minute.

But graduations, grandbabies and great moves have kept this Momma grey and busy.

And can we take another hot minute and thank the Lord that grey hair is actually “In” now and that high waisted everything has made it back into fashion?

Lord, please come again when I’m actually “cool” for once in my life.

The crazy thing about kids is that there’s always more growing going on.

No stack of books on the head deters someone passing us up and deep down I’m glad for it.

Like, deep down.

Like so deep it’s just about “deeper than the stain has gone.”

Did you even grow up in the 80’s if you don’t know the line from that song?!

Songs that you belted out in the back of the church van bounding down the road while your older sister tried to draw on blue eyeliner and not lose and eye.

Days when the thought of a family of my very own would’ve make me laugh out loud.

And then I blinked.

With one married, two adulting at home, two in college and one despising high school the days of littles is behind me and herding adults still finds me somehow hunting for lost shoes of all things.

And if I’m not careful,

If I’m not really really careful,

I can find myself more frustrated at the shoes and less grateful for the feet that inhabit them that I never imagined I’d have to enjoy.

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some squeaky clean floors you can eat off of.

The ability to make my tea AND drink it still hot and lovely.

The arrows are all pointing forward to exciting and faith-filled newness.

And in my mind’s eye I try to allow myself to follow the arrows back to where they were shot and remember.

Remember bedtime stories of made-up bears that eat noodles of all things.

Mornings of oatmeal with coffee creamer, chocolate chips and anything edible from the spice cabinet.

Devotions with “The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes” and teaching them how to make the perfect cups of Earl Grey.

I try to remember the blessing of each little one making their appearance and making our home just the way it should be and making us more like Christ one spelling test at a time.

We look at life as parents as a great experiment.

As if we have the chance to go back and enjoy it again, fixing things that needed fixing the first time through with all the experience we’ve gained.

But that’s not possible.

I smile remembering my girl standing with me on the sidewalk in Paris, France last year.

Her eyes wide and sparkling and every inch of her radiating with excitement and wonder.

She was trying to take it all in.

A new country, a new horizon, unknown and unappreciated.

And with the most sincere voice she tells me, “I can tell that I’m already not appreciating it enough!”

And I laughed right out loud because I felt every bit of what she was expressing.

How every ounce of your being can want to collect all the memories and scenes and keep them like Mary and ponder them in your heart for months to come.

And watching her realize just how futile that is,

How we can’t hoard a feeling and moment more than life allows,

Has been bemoaned by the greatest poets in history.

All you can do is thank God for allowing your skin to feel the breeze, your tastebuds to explore new sweetness and squint to see as far as you possibly can.

You can’t go back and see the glint in your fiancé’s eyes as your Father hands you to him.

You can’t remake your first meal that had way too much chicken and noodles and too few seasonings and sauce.

You can’t go back and feel the weight of your first little girl in her first dress,

Or the feel of cold little fingers smooshed underneath your chin as you snuggle them close.

You can’t rewatch your husband become a father again and again and again getting cuter and cuter.

I can’t even hold on to the whole experience of my own son coming through delivery room doors to tell me with a smile that his newborn son looks just like his little brother.

I can try to bring it all back to the front of my memory, but I cannot fully take it all in like I did that very early Sunday morning.

That’s why today is the “present.”

It’s a gift to feel the October breeze on your favorite shirt,

To enjoy your Panera coffee concoction,

And to hug an unexpected church teen popping in to see you typing away and send them back to work with a chocolate chip cookie.

There’s no “next time around” for this life.

There’s only today to give thanks and enjoy the Lord’s smile on your life.

There’s only today to love your crew with all you have and your neighbor as yourself.

So what are you reading this for?

Go get out there and enjoy this day!