Moments . . .

I'm realizing just how important and significant they can be.  Have you ever noticed that?

That in a MOMENT everything can be defined for you . . .

That in a MOMENT clarity may be re-formed or obliterated . . .

That MOMENTS capture our imagination . . . and form our beliefs . . .

When we were younger, we were described as "having a MOMENT", much to the chagrin to whomever was around us at the time.

When we need a break , we may ask for a MOMENT.

When we want to speak to someone, we ask for a MOMENT of their time and attention.

MOMENTS provide us with so much , and yet,

we seem to disregard them so often.

How often has the MOMENT passed?

How much to you reach back for that MOMENT again?

It is like a breeze that brushes past you . . . one that you felt . . . you knew . . . but is gone, to no longer be captured again.

What about this MOMENT right now?  What will it bring to your heart and life?

I have friends who live in beautiful areas.  They capture that beauty from time to time in pictures and words and I'm drawn in.   I'm in the picture . . . I'm in that moment . . . beauty over takes me . . . something within is stirred.

Hope arises and believes . . .

and then again . . . other moments steal away hopes, beliefs, dreams.  They are moments that are stamped and seared onto the fabric of our minds and the canvas of our hearts.  Split seconds of time and images that, in those moments, swallow us away and we no longer can see the beauty.

Oh, by all means, we so want to !!

But in that second . . . . maybe it was an event . . . a look . . . an event . . . a word . . .  but in that second , a filter is somehow imposed over our essence and all that is and is before us, simply sucks the wind from our lungs, our bones , our drive, and our hearts.

That moment has seemed to define everything around us . . .

What are we to believe now?

That is what death and grief has done in these past months of my life.   And I've heard all the well wishers  (some pretenders , many though are genuine) , who don't understand your moment and try to force you out of that moment . . . they shrug their shoulders and wag their tongues . . . but no invitation to beauty only the false charade of self-management techniques.

But only another MOMENT will do it . . .

and we know it . . .

It may be in a picture again . . . or their words . . . one who is present enough within themselves to sit within you . . . and belief and hope for you . . .

"In a MOMENT . . . in the twinkling of an EYE . . .  with a VOICE . . . "  , one writer proposes that hope will arrive . . . but maybe there is a pattern there to healing too . . .

Someone there . . . in that MOMENT . . . one who SEES . . . with love's glimmer . . . whose VOICE stirs life again . . .

Hope and longing stirs for that . . . for them . . .

Freedom ! or ?

So, tonight as I sit here I wonder about "Freedom" . . . 

There is so much rhetoric spinning around, it is so easy to get knocked off balance by a thousand different things floating past us in lightning speed.  The "independent" spirit of our country, which having grown up in a military home, is so very dear to my heart!  I am so thankful, as I sit here, to the dozens of friends that are serving in the military around this world.  I pray for your protection . . . I pray for your families back home . . . I pray for the mystery of grace to be overwhelmingly bountiful to overshadow the loss and emptiness that these days bring to all of you.   So much of what I enjoy costs others everything . . . I'm humbled . . . I'm indebted to their love and sacrifice.

I also have been re-visisted by the freedom of life and friendship.  I have a dear friend, who just kissed goodbye to a dear beloved loved one as she slipped into the embrace of eternity's joy and love.  It stirred my own echoes of loss again . . . a place that continues to not sit well within the pit of my stomach.   A haunting that continues to creep up in a nauseating stir . . . I wonder as I sit here when "freedom" will speak to that place.

There is also a freedom to trust again that begins to gingerly make its way to my reality.  I have several who have not faded . . . not relinquished . . .  not turned away during the nastiness of times.  They see something . . . believe in one, truer than I often can trust in.  If I attempt to name any or all, I am so shortsighted, for they desire not to be on a list, but rather to be known.  Yes, I know each of you by name, and you to me as well!   Even if we are apart, the shade of your friendship casts a cool breeze over an unsettled heart and an encouraging glory to believe and dream.  Again, thankfulness and humility stir.  I feel life force forward as I linger there  . . . creativity, vulnerability, risk . . . all began to take shape and movement.  Hmmmmmm , love, devotion, sacrifice, risk, cost . . . all similar themes in different places, but true to the One who disperses His gifts among us.

But take everything else away and the one constant trust that daily stands in my existence is family.  My wife and my children continue to journey with me in ways that cannot be explained or expressed deeply enough.  They are the ones that I truly pray will dance for years to come in the environment that we have explored and shared together . . . this place of freedom and grace.  To share years with one that even in the midst of loss, disappointment, hurt and misunderstanding , continues to endeavor to learn and exhibit the very heart of a Father who has believed, loved and trusted with so much.  We have shared that life with children . . . who are now into the "adult years" learning on their own all that that same Father is desiring for their hearts to rest into as well.  It's painful, at times, to watch them suffer loss, failure, betrayal, pain . . . but I know, somewhere deep inside my soul, that they will discover "freedom" in ways that I have only dreamed of.  Maybe that is it . . . maybe my dreams have often been more attached to their unfolding paths - more than my securing anything further.  Yes, that seems so TRUE!  My "independence" is really attached to believe and hope in the betterment of those I love deepest. . . . Again . . . similar symphony expressing itself in other tunes and scores . . . 

Yes, I sense a calmness in that place.  A rest that is "unsettled" in one sense , but yet so solid that you know will endure and be fulfilled as those that I love dearest taste those very dreams as realities for themselves. 

Freedom . . . more for others than myself . . . 

maybe I am  . . . 

FREE