Monday, February 09, 2015

Gifts

Last night I was sorrowing for pieces of my life.
I suppose this is universal; mourning loss, all of her different faces.
Mourning change.
Mourning your own frailties.
Adjusting.
Missing.
Seeing things in the light of changing perspective.
Wondering.
Trying to understand.
Kind of like looking through a glass darkly,
but occasionally getting pieces to the puzzles, bursts of light and clarity while inside a tunnel of learning and growth.
Mourning pieces that may never be again, seasons that come and then go.

The last couple of weeks I've thought a lot about Job's famous lines. 
I've been pondering his words:

"Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
(Job 1:21)

Even when things change, and in whatever form those changes take shape in our lives --- 
relationships or aging or death or your children growing before your eyes,
disappointments, regrets, sorrows, grappling with questions or uncertainty, pain, imperfection,  
what isn't anymore or what is forever changing ---
one thing is constant, and that is gratitude.

Even when the gift changes, it was still a gift.
The beauty, growth, love, learning. 
The journey.
The soul-changing is staggering; imprinting.

In the giving and the taking, in the ebb and flow,
God is so good.
So merciful.
So generous in His love.

The gratitude for the gift never leaves.
And all the ways that the gift changed your heart, 
and continues to do so, brings more gifts.

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