Lately, it feels like there’s a lot in motion. A lot of things to think through, look ahead to, and attempt to plan for. I know that’s a default setting of myself, however. And as I have struggled to reflect, I realize how seldom I look to the past these days—to memories of things that once were, that did exist, that were moments of themselves full of something worth preserving in the mind and heart.
I often look to what there is yet to learn and to do. It’s as if I look at the horizon as a fixed ending point, and attempt to decipher the mile markers and highway signs between here and there to plan this journey of life. The problem with that, however, is that the horizon is infinite—stretching on forever, unable to be reached for or grasped. My eyes strain ever more forward as if I could just look a little farther, then perhaps I’ll gain some insight or revelation to contribute to what I am doing here and now. It becomes an infinite search for a supplement of wisdom and direction to be added onto what I am doing in the present—hoping it would confirm that I am being sustainable, wise, and guided.
The way ahead changes though. It changes at times that may be foreseen, and at others that catch me completely off guard. Those moments reveal the risk of holding onto a direction or vision that is fixed. Those moments illuminate where my trust and hope resides—in the hoped for details that will be unrealized, or the big picture of a sovereign Lord who has gone before.
I look at life ahead and it feels so long. Yet, I look behind at life that has passed, and it seems so fast. In a moment where I stop striving for the horizon to recall and remember instead, I realize that perhaps the sentiment of what I look for in the present and future has already been given in the past.
A good friend of mine speaks of how when she is in a present moment worth remembering, she attempts to “quilt the moment into her mind.” I love this picture, for quilting requires a diligence and attentiveness to the task at hand—stitch by stitch—slowing down in an air of quietness. Quilts are cherished treasures retained to and passed down, reminders of the diligence of a moment to be preserved. Life is about so much more than just trajectory, and I so often fail to remember this. It is most evident when I am asked to recall a week, months, year, and if all I can remember is blurred because of the sheer momentum (or distraction) persisting throughout, then I have not been a good steward of the moments given—each moment a gift from the Lord, each moment an opportunity to lay down a marker to remember from whence I came. In the blur of focusing on trajectory, I get caught up in the obscurity of what I cannot see, rather than stopping to retain what I can. Sometimes it’s easier to just let life blur and mix altogether. I confess that I often do so and rid moments of their potency, as if I fear the weight it may bear—whatever it may be. It’s easier to drive around the speed bump and keep going, rather than slowing down to go over it and feel it in every part of my being.
…
I look at my husband across the dinner table these days as he processes present career, the diligence and exhaustion, and what changes may lie ahead--whether prompted or not. I look at the face that I have known for nearly 10 years now to see the slight changes on his brow that serve as markers for the years that have passed. I cannot help but recall past times of uncertainty and indecision where we were unsure of what would come next or how it could even happen. In these years, some dreams and hopes of ours were realized. Others, even as gloriously as they may have resided in our hearts at one time, have been quieted as the Lord guided us elsewhere. In looking back, there is peace residing over all the days that have passed. There is overall peace in both the now known and the still unknown. God is gracious, even in the suffering we have tasted a bit of, because He has given us Himself in all of these days and moments past and yet to come.
When I look back, I see and recall the things we have passed, the altars of remembrance laid, the memories abundant, and I also hear the persistent voice of God stating, “I have been with you through all of this. It has been what it is because of Me.”
When I look ahead, I’m either blinded by the light on the horizon or cast in darkness because of the absence of light; in both, I can be frustrated that I cannot make out any details of where I’m supposed to go—missing the wholeness of it entirely. God Himself governs the night and the day (1 that encompasses all the days and details yet to come. I’m looking at Whom I need without realizing it, that He is there all along and will be. He has not hid Himself but revealed Himself graciously through His Son who entered the joys and pains of this human life we live. If there is peace from the past because of His presence through it, so also there should be peace in the future from trusting in Him Who will lead us through it.
As for this moment—it is the one given now, and I can either choose to let it blur or to take it in, to quilt it into my mind that it can one day serve as a remembrance. So, I take my eyes down from the horizon to take in what is around me now. I turn around the bend and there is one sign I can make out—the only one I really need to heed:
Yield.
1: Genesis 1: 14-18. “And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.