We're back home in Kokomo from the weeklong trip to our homeland, Texas. Perhaps another day I will post some pics from that trip.
Friends and family streamed through my mother-in-law's house to see us off. They knew that we won't be back for a while since we are about to move across the sea to Scotland. This last week in Kokomo will no doubt be filled with similar scenes ...
so humor me, I must philosophize.
Life is full of inevitable endings, but most of the time we rock along in the middle. I admit, the middle suits me. The middle is not filled with great ceremonial speeches to friends where you summerize your true feelings. The middle doesn't make you examine yourself as much to see if you have really changed anything for the better. The middle doesn't expect you to look around and appreciate every moment. The middle doesn't highten your senses as much. It doesn't make you want to reach out as much. It doesn't make you want to listen a little closer. It doesn't prompt you to go out of your way to reach somebody. Endings do this.
No, the middle is much more conservative. It doesn't require as much effort. It's comfortable.
But lately I've been thinking about how Christ handled endings. Endings were precious opportunities that life brought His way (respectfully speaking). He made use of them to communicate love and appreciation to people. He used them to say something meaningful. He made the most of them. He embraced them.
What an inspiration!
Oh Lord, help me not to hold back now. Help me not to hide in the middle when I arrive at an ending. And help me to remember that that middles and endings ultimately take place in a Kingdom that has no end.
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4 comments:
At times, I truly wish there were more "middles" in my life...to date, my existence has seemed mostly full of beginnings and endings--some joyous and some that brought tears.
To be quite honest, I always dreamed of being like my great-grandmother, living my entire life in one town, spending all my days encouraging the same friends I'd held since infancy, and attending the same Calvary Baptist Church that had been my home for 70 years...but God has seen fit to place me in a life that doesn't hold quite so much "sameness", and I think I'm alright with that. :) I know he knows best anyway, and I've grown to love and embrace the beginnings and endings with which He's filled my days. :)
I know you'll do wonderfully in this next "beginning", and I'll pray for you as you go through this "end". :) Perhaps, sometime soon, God will allow you to taste the blessings of another "middle". At the close of your life, I know you'll look back and treasure all three types of time, just the same. :)
Many blessings!
You are humored :o) Those were some very good thoughts.
One of the things that I've realized about getting to the end of your rope is that some of them you have to carefully tie to a close, and others you leave deliberately open (frayed almost - if you look at it with another point of view!). At that point it is a great thing to cry out for wisdom from the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, like you do in this post.
And yes, I think that you have changed *much* for the better. Just take this blog for instance...
You are humored :o) Those were some very good thoughts.
One of the things that I've realized about getting to the end of your rope is that some of them you have to carefully tie to a close, and others you leave deliberately open (frayed almost - if you look at it with another point of view!). At that point it is a great thing to cry out for wisdom from the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, like you do in this post.
And yes, I think that you have changed *much* for the better. Just take this blog for instance...
Thanks for your post as I too enjoy life as a "middler." Even as we sadly see the time in Kokomo coming to an end, we also have to anticipate beginnings of glorious ministry in Scotland. A reminder that the ultimate ending of this life will result in the beginning of glories everlasting?
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