your destiny

 "the degree to which we will fulfill our purpose on the planet, is largely determined by the decisions we make today about our yesterday." chris caine  (from gabi )

what is life? it's nothing more than a compilation of our bits. our moments. our nows and our yesterdays and our tomorrows, if we have one.  all of life is like this. everything is make up of other things- smaller things- pieces and parts. a beach is made up of it's sands. a field is each peace of grass. everything can be broken down and broken down again until we are left with carbon molecules. that's all.  and our life can be broken down into it's pieces too.  we like to think big- what we will do and who we will be or become- and where we will live and where we should live- and when we should do and be these things. but all those questions are answered in how we live our minutes- right now.  this second- this sliver of a day- is my life. i am made of my decisions - not just the big ones- all of them- even the small ones.

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become your character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

sometimes when things feel hard and overwhelming, when life itself seems like there are too many overlapping ven diagrams to possibly know what to do, sometimes when the kite strings of life are all blowing around in the air knotting themselves up, i stop paying attention to my moments.  i just do my moments. i just go through the motions of my days.  i am not present, not thoughtful, not even sometimes aware of what i'm doing- i'm just doing what i can in that minute- un-reflectively.  i'm not watching my thoughts, or my words or even my actions.  sometimes i'm not even noticing my habits- until suddenly- something i'm doing regularly is not inline with what i think my character is or should be. 

then i take pause. then i stop and remember that i should have been watching.  that not paying attention to my feeling and my thoughts- leads me to say things i don't really mean- or shouldn't say.  and then i do things i shouldn't do, i yell my words and make an angry face at my kids- or i don't do something for mike that i should do. and then because i'm not watching - i keep doing these things until they become a bit of a habit. and then every day i'm shouting and scrunching up my face and not hearing and responding to the needs of the ones i love the most. oops.

but it's important.  it's real.  because i don't want to wake up one day on the other side of who i want to be. i don't want to make the people i live with and love, miserable or even just not as joyful, because i wasn't watching- because i wasn't listening to my life- because i wasn't active- i wasn't choosing- because i was sleep walking through my moments.

i read an article the other day from the UK huffington post written by a woman who had just died 3 days earlier.  yes, she wrote it as she was dying. as she was writing her funeral and her goodbye letters to her kids.  it was a plea of sorts. it spoke to me.  it said, basically, "wake up! this is it- this is the time you get in this skin- so BE in your life. live it how you really mean to live it.  pay attention.  tell people you love them. show them. hug them. don't waste it.  don't become knotted in your own kite strings. "  she said basically what beuchner said, " listen to your life. see it for the fathomless mystery it is. in the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the hold and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments and life itself is grace."

that is it. life itself is grace. our nows matter.  and they matter more than those big possible decisions in the future that we can obsess about- get lost in- forgetting our now over.

so today, i'm slowing it down. today i got up and said, "help". today i sat with myself in the kitchen at 5:30 and i stayed in the kitchen- meaning i mentally stayed with the task at hand- i was present in the toast making.  and because of that, i asked nicely what kids wanted on their toast, i told rose of course she could change her shirt if she wanted, i help bryn with his shoes, and zoe with her tooth brushing.  i lived the breakfast-brush teeth-shoes on-bags packed-get in the car time, instead of just checking it off my list.  because it matters. because those things become my destiny. how i walk, where my feet take me, that decides who i am- whether i'm fulfilling or not fulfilling my purpose in life.

we find ourselves in unexpected ways and places. we find God this way too- in light and sound and in a word and a view.  i don't want to miss out on God or on me.  i don't want my husband and my kids to miss these things either.  may i make wise small choices.  may i lead by example.  may i be present here, now, only. may i teach this and see the fruit of it. may i, through my moments, fulfill my purpose on this planet.