These are the days of our lives...

Another week has almost come and gone. These days are so filled that it is so easy to look up and another week has flown by. I think I'm learning more and more as I enjoy my "adult" life that this phenomenon has less to do with this hectic time of training and orientation and more to do with life. How quickly hours fly by, days seem to disappear, and weeks turn into months in the blink of an eye. Many authors and songwriters have tried to put this experience into words and lyrics. We watch television shows like grey's anatomy that attempt teach us to embrace every moment while we have them. We watch the news and learn that each day is a gift and that people all over the world didn't receive the gift of life this morning. And you know what strikes me most? That the knowledge and the words of time's relentless passing changes nothing.

It changes nothing. We eat. We sleep. We stand in lines. We wait at traffic lights. We exercise (or worry about exercising if you're like me). We worry. A lot. We worry about bills, dieting, education, marriages/relationships (or lack thereof), our families, our jobs (or lack thereof), our churches, our communities, the economy, and on and on. We talk. We watch tv. We surf the web. We shop. and when that doesn't fill your twenty-four hours, somehow you find people, whom you'd probably rather not be dealing with to fill the remaining hours of the day.

But it's not all work and no play. We have fun. We make memories. But i've realized if we're not careful, or if I'm not careful, the memory-making experiences come far less often than the mundane.

So did we miss anything? The bills are paid, the calories counted, the tests are studied for, the news has been watched, we even squeezed in Wednesday night choir practice, our children have been cared for, our relationships are surviving. That's it. We are surviving.

Is that what He intended? Did he bless us with family and friends to give us more people to worry over. Has our job become a burden rather than a way that God has provided for us? Has the blessing of technology become just another day I have to be on hold with dell waiting for someone who can speak english to tell me why my laptop is vommitting explorer windows? Is time merely passing us by?

What will I say when I get to heaven? What will I say to my friend, the unbeliever, when they ask me why my faith matters when there's nothing different about my life? An old newsboys song use to say,
"shine make ´em wonder what you´ve got
make ´em wish that they were not
on the outside looking bored
shine let it shine before all men
let´em see good works, and then
let ´em glorify the Lord"

Shine? Who's got time to be joyful? I'll have time when I'm older. I'm just really in the thick of things right now. I'll have time when I graduate. I'll have time to enjoy life when my children leave home.

And that day never comes.

Today is the day that the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it.

Take time to enjoy the people God has blessed you with. Make phone calls you've been meaning to make. Send people an email to let them know what they mean to you. Spend time listening to your children's funny stories when they get home from school. Spend time learning the things you've always wanted to learn but never had the time. Spend time sitting at the feet of Jesus who is our source of joy. When time passes you by, because it most certainly will, know that today you were ready and be able to smile as you watch it go by.

I am learning every day to live for today. To live for HIM today.

Katie

"God's voice is still and quiet and easily buried under an avalanche of clamour." ~ Charles Stanley

Pray for God to soften the hearts of his people, even now as I prepare to take his love to Colombia.
Pray that I would not be overtaken with the mundane, but that I would let God overtake me with his love and with his joy.
Pray for immunizations tomorrow. Round 2 of 3.
Pray that God would call out more laborers to the fields. (Every second, more than 1,000 Chinese people will die without ever knowing the saving grace of our Christ Jesus.)
Pray for opportunities for me, and for you, to share our faith, even tomorrow, and that we would be attentive to these opportunities.

"Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work." - Oswald Chambers