"Turn my eyes from worthless things"

I love that the epiphany that we think we need and that God knows we need never match! I know HIm well enough now to know that it is only very very rarely that He will alter circumstances before challenging my heart, my attitudes, my priorities and my reasons. 

The only way I can explain how I feel is through metaphor. It is like I have been staring intently waiting for these little plants to grow, trying to predict where the new shoots will come up, what they will look like, trying to control the environment around it to ensure nothing goes wrong. I have stared so hard and so long that my vision is getting tired and blurred and my focus is waning. I still blink but to look away is to lose control, to leave the plants even for an instant, to the elements, to randomness. Will one die? Will they all grow? which one will be first and what colors will they be, how tall will they grow? 

Finally I cannot bear it anymore, my eyes are so tired that I glance away to give them rest. It is then that I see a bright red rose. Just the one, in the garden that I sit, a foot from my face, that I had never noticed. It so grabbed my attention and yet there was no effort in looking at it, the red invigorated and yet soothed my tired eyes. It took no work, I was not it's gardener, I simply looked and marvelled and enjoyed. I realised that I must be getting back to my plants when the epiphany hit;

I had been staring at the wrong thing. I don't mean simply "we need to focus our eyes on Jesus" but more that I had put my focus on something so pointless, over which I had no control and was inevitably going to come up just as God placed within their seed to come up. I realised not only the futility but stupidity of my wasted hours staring and trying once again to predict a plan that is as fluid and changing as the wind. A plan that I gave to Jesus so many years ago, who am I to try and figure it out. 

It is not about the job, it's not about moving, it's not about ministry, timing or situation. It is not about the future, nor about the purpose and plan for right now. It is simply and only about love. I have read words like this a million times but to have the revelation of them, to have them sink into the marrow of my bones and the depths of my soul, is like finally being able to lay back on the soft green grass, enjoy the breeze over my face, and rest my eyes as I let nature take it's course. 

So what does this all mean? It means I owe an apology to those I have ranted to for one! It means that whatever it looks like to pour my life out in love right now, that is what I will do. It means that my motivation is not ambition, furthering of gifting, grabbing opportunity or trying to "figure out" where I am meant to be or am heading. For me right now, it is pouring my life into the beautiful old people i get the honor of hugging and loving on every day. It is walking one foot in front of the other and giving this job everything I have until God asks me to lay it down and go to another place. I love these people, I love that once again I can have the opportunity to lay my life down for people in caring for them and making the final years of their lives ones where they can encounter Jesus and a love that they may have spent almost a century never knowing existed. 

When I realise that I am loved, when I look at that rose and enjoy its blood red blossom that was just for me in that moment, I realise what love looks like and what priorities really are. He is my only priority. Love is all that I need to make decisions, to live my life and to walk one foot in front of the other. 

If i have learned one thing from looking after my beautiful elderly friends, it is simply that ambition, expectation, aspirations, work, family, friends, money and all other motivations will not last. The only place of true fulfillment throughout life, even when we lose our ability to do all else...is love. Is Him.

If I were to write 10,000 words

How much more would I be heard?

How could even all express,

Depths of joy mirrored by distress.

Though words paint well a canvas bare,

I fear even these won't take me there. 

For what picture do I wish to find,

To paint the feelings in my mind?

An ocean, sitting, to and fro,

On pebbled beach soft waves do flow.

A silent, never-ending tide,

Herald change, reveal and hide.

And yet, until it's gone once more,

Do I dare walk this salted shore.

I look intent for nothing known,

I find only one acceptable stone. 

But as I reach the waves appear,

Crashing, rushing, crawling near.

I've yet to know the stone's purpose before,

Fingered waves cover pebbled floor. 

The stone, my precious treasure touched,

By crawling, roaring waters brushed. 

Intake of breath, a sigh of waves, 

Receding now as sunlight bathes

Myriads of stones, all alive but one;

For my precious little stone,

was gone.