on making it count

Beginnings are usually scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s what’s in the middle that counts. (Hope Floats)

And that's where I am in life. In the glorious middle, striving and hoping every single day to make my days count. My middle finds me in Ohio, married to a really good man. A really good man that I do not deserve. He folds laundry and sweeps floors and washes dishes and changes diapers and earns the paycheck. He tells me that I am beautiful and he dances in the living room with our daughters and he makes our boys smile. I take him for granted and I shouldn't. My middle finds me the mama to four children, and my oldest is nine and most days pass too quickly for comfort. Because the only thing growing faster than my children's bodies are their feet, and the screen door swings open as they exit with the early morning sun and it doesn't swing back shut until that morning sun is setting low. And there are bellies to be filled and baths to be had and then it is off to bed with a kiss and an I love you. And as another day passes I wonder aloud, did this one count? Did I make the most of my day, my time, my life? Because you only get one. One life to make count. And the truthiest truth is that most days I feel like I didn't. I slept too long or sat too long or spent too many minutes reading about other's grand lives while wishing mine was something other than what it is, instead of determining to make my one life the happy that I dream of.

I read on a sign today that bold change requires bold commitment. And I want that bold change in my life. In the story of our family. Not change in our setting. Our setting is my happy place. And not change in our cast of characters. I wouldn't trade my family and friends for the world. The bold change that I long for is a bold change inside of me that spills outward and up and all around. The bold change that takes someone (me) from merely existing through life to fully embracing it. Because I am tired of busy and debt and extra weight. And I am tired of snappy tones and frustration and discontent. And I am tired of just 'waiting' until this or that happens and then and only then can our happy begin. Because our happy is now. Right here in this glorious middle. And I fear we are living some of our very best days and we don't even know it, because we are living our days in this world that is spinning out of control.

In the heavenly realm the first are last and the last are first. Less is most definitely always more and God is always more than enough. He is everything. But most days I don't choose to live with a heavenly mindset. I choose to get caught up in the current of our culture. Our world where the first and the prettiest and the wealthiest are the most important and where we can never have enough. Of what, I don't actually know. I live in a realm where God seems nice, but it doesn't seem like he is really real. At least not in an alive and active kind of way. So I walk around in this world where we have it all wrong, and I continually bump my head as I try to turn myself around. Because this world I am living in is exhausting and in the inner most places of my soul I know that I was made for more.

And so that is what I am seeking. This more. This more of God. And scripture says that if I empty myself before him then he will fill me up. And that if I seek him I will find him. And it will take bold commitment but it will be worth it for bold change. Bold change in this glorious middle where I currently find myself, so that at the end of my days I can find that they did indeed count.