Thursday, October 9, 2008

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear

I've been having trouble feeling like I was stuck in neutral. The day in, day out grind of kids, cooking, cleaning, clothes, and chaos. Kind of like the movie "Groundhog Day."

This morning's devotion from Daily Focus (Alpha Omega) hit the nail on the head. I am waiting for something BIG to happen in our life (literally) and I am not fully living here...in the miracle of the moment. I am here physically, but my mind and heart are elsewhere. This devotion reminded me to be present. I am a child of God, a wife, a mom, and a teacher and I wasn't giving any of those jobs my present attention. I know I'm onto a life lesson, because a friend called shortly after I read the devotion this morning and when she heard how frazzled I was she offered to pray for me. God directed her into the very core of my heart. She zeroed in on this issue of mine and prayed for me to be present, to not keep looking ahead to "the" day, but to live for now. She nailed it.

THEN, I get in the car and I have a picture of a little girl that we sponsor at PHF on my dashboard. As I went to back out, I saw the reflection of that picture in my driver side mirror. That has never happened before, nor could I make it happen again (I tried and I watched for it as I drove around town today-nope!). What word's did God use in the devotion to reach the writer? Yup, "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."

THEN, as I was driving to BLR with our 3 kids, I started to have a pity party that went something like this "I'm always the one to tata everyone when things go wrong, when you lose something, or break something, or you get hurt. Well, who's there to tata me??? huh?" (sound familiar?) My brave 11 year old quietly pipes up, almost in a whisper, "God..." He goes on to ask if I've prayed about it. He said "just close your eyes and pray sincerely to God in your heart." OUCH! He was right. My time with God has been dry. I'm there reading my chapter of the old testament, a psalm, and a chapter of the new testament, day in, day out. But my actual time with Him is weak.

Things will not always be this way. We need to take each moment as it is...a miracle from God and live it to it's fullest.

So my quest is to nourish my time with God, I need to be present with Him as well.

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." Ecclesiastes 3:1

3 comments:

Table for Six said...

great post. goose bumps about the mirror thing :O)

Amy Jo said...

Wow, Charlene! That was a powerful post. Thanks for sharing. BTW - what's "tata?"

Anonymous said...

Charlene,
How my heart jumped when you mentioned being there when others are in need as you had all the right words for me not too long ago! I wish I had the right ones for you...but it sounds like your 11 year old was there when needed
=0)! How wonderful is that?!? And sounds like the little girl in the mirror is reaching out too!

Thinking of you at this time...with lots of prayers and positive thoughts,
Erin