Having a good life

Mijo is coming home soon from her cross Canada ministry trip, Nick is playing soccer at a State championship game, Scott just came home from Montana after 3 weeks and is waiting to start up work here again and I am winding up to wind down after a tumultuous teaching and International Directoring year...if that is even a word. This is the reality of life, moving up, coming back and moving onward again. 

 I was with a student the other day who has decided to do the most difficult, move away from bad habits and friendships to becoming a 'good person'.

I was thinking as she was talking...it is really hard to be a 'good person' but it may not be that hard to work for a good life. 1 Peter talks a lot about having the good life... in verse 3:9 " Do you want to love life and see good days?"  as if this is a normal and usual desire.
We keep thinking we need to be good people, but maybe rather then having that as our motivation...we choose to live a certain way not to be a good person, but to love life and see good days. I don't lie not because it makes me a good person, but because honesty makes for a good life. I look for peace and go after it not because I am a good person but I want peace in my life so I resolve conflicts and forgive so I can see good days. As a wife I follow my husband not to be a good wife, but to have a good life with my husband. I don't give in to fear not because I am a better person than those who do...ie; those who worry. I don't give in to fear because fear robes me of loving life and seeing good days.

I don't want to be a good person ...I want a good life. A good life means I make choices about my behavior that affects everyone around me...then when they are with me we can live a good life together.

Just like that...

I just came back from Thetis Island because Mijo finished her year there. I swear...well, if I swore...we JUST DROPPED her off! AND we just started school and this picture was taken just yesterday when in fact it was taken 2 years ago. WHAT IS GOING ON with time.

I lay my head on the pillow every night and there is this anxiety that I am missing life because it is going by too fast for me to enjoy.

I remember thinking when the kids started school that 12 years looked like a long time down the road. I know those of us in this age in the middle are hanging on, with fingers grasping the edge of  the proverbial clock and wishing we were more masters of when and how time passes.

 I don't know how to be OK with times uncaring march into the future. Time is every one's reality, friend and enemy.

Time is God' s metronome; limited, consistent, persistent...meticulously measuring the beginning and end of His intervention in this world from every sunrise to every sunset.
Until one day...it stops. There is then no more sunrise and sunset...no more measuring , no more waiting and rushing. No more...
When I lay my head on the pillow and feel anxiety, it may be that I am longing for a timeless reality that is written in my heart...a taste of eternity left there as a promise.