Just now, I was driving home from preschool and thinking about how we are a couple of days away from Nora’s first birthday. One year has very nearly passed me by and I am so different a person than I was the day I read that positive pregnancy test.
We are here.
I breathed in the cool autumn air and my eyes drank in the red, gold, green glory of the leaves in the trees. We are here and I am seeing another fall. I am seeing another fall.
I’ll give thanks on Thanksgiving that I’m alive, that Nora is alive, that I’m not in the hospital this year on Thanksgiving.
So thankful for life.
But I’m also thankful for my near death. And I wouldn’t have said that even a few days ago. But something has shaken in me, something has shifted and changed.
I’ve been trying to teach and trying to learn these things:
- Love God, love people
- Live thankful
- Stop pretending everything is okay, be real!
- Love well
And I still think those are good things…but I have not been teaching and I’m only just learning that before I can do that stuff, before I can know what real freedom looks like….
I have to learn this whipsered request from the God of all:
Beloved, be loved.
I have to learn to let Him really love me. And to do that, I have to trust Him and to trust Him, I have to know Him.
So much more to say. So much more to come.
November 19, 2012 was the first day of the rest of my life.
November 19, 2013 will be the first day of the rest of my life again.
Beloved, Be Loved 