A Day At a Time

 

Sometimes a day turns into a week, turns into a month, turns into a lot longer. That is kind of how my blogging (or lack of it) seems to be going. I could plead busyness…….I could plead the general state of our world….and it would be true. I could blame the grayness of our Iowa winter….and that would also be true.

None of those things by themselves should have turned off the blogging tap. Perhaps it was the perfect storm combined with a severe case of writers block…in fact, I think, I am dealing with an entire wall of writers’ blocks.  My brain still seems to be suffering from that and I have yet to find the remedy.

It seems that even as I sit here typing these random words; the creativity of words is buried so deep in my brain that I kind of wonder if they will ever find release again! My brain kind of feels like those frozen ice balls I saw on Lake Michigan last weekend….they just kind of roll around in the cold gray water and don’t seem to go anywhere. 

Somewhere in the middle of my vacation from the blogging world I was told I had a blogiversary.  It has been 5 years since I entered the world of bloggers and WordPress. What started out with great gusto has dwindled to zip and like I said…I am not quite sure how that happened.

I find that happens a lot in life. My husband always points out that everything happens…”A day at a time, until it is many days and weeks and months.” Sometimes this is good and sometimes it is not…also true of many things in life!

So many things happen one day at a time….one day we are young and it seems the next day we look in the mirror and we aren’t anymore. (At least I seem to have that issue!) In the blink of an eye our children are grown and have families of their own. 

The experience of how swiftly time moves was driven home a weekend ago. My siblings and I took a road trip to Michigan to celebrate the life of my cousin. He was only 53 before losing a valiant battle with cancer. I had not seen any of the Michigan cousins for a very long time. 

There was lots of laughter amidst the sadness. So much remembering and story telling of shared eperiences. There was celebrating of the fact that my cousin left an amazing legacy of faith that lives on his children and his wife, his friends, his co-workers and all who knew him. 

The weekend was a reminder about how fleeting this life really is. Fleeting like those ice balls on Lake Michigan…here today…floating in the icy water, but come Spring they will be just a memory.  It was a reminder to cherish the moments we have…to make time for the small things that don’t seem important right now, but do end up being the biggest things.

Make those memories today, because those are the things your family will cherish. Teach your children and grandchildren the truths that are important…faith in God, the importance of family, that honesty and integrity are worth the trouble, that truth…no matter how hard, is important and that finding joy in the small things makes life so much easier. 

These are the things I relearned that weekend in Michigan as I listened to Brent’s brothers, parents, co-workers and friends talk of the life he lived. 

May our lives be more than just ice balls floating in a lake. May the message that is our lives last far beyond a season….and hopefully our friends and families will someday celebrate a life well lived, with laughter, stories and joy.

Cherish your yesterdays,
dream your tomorrows
and live your todays.
~Anonymous